


Hololive EN: Battle for Earth

by kenoi131



Category: Hololive, Hololive En, holoMyth
Genre: Action, Apocalypse, Friendship
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-11-29
Updated: 2021-02-22
Packaged: 2021-03-10 02:49:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 7
Words: 30,585
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27767026
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kenoi131/pseuds/kenoi131
Summary: It started off as a normal, relaxing day for Calliope Mori, until screams tore through the streets of Tokyo. It was then that she and her friends found themselves wrapped up in a desperate battle against unknown invaders. These five mythological beings were the only ones that could stand before this terrible horde. Can a quintet of cute anime girls band together and save the world?
Comments: 47
Kudos: 156





	1. Episode 1: Emergence

Calliope Mori strode down a crowded Tokyo sidewalk. A summer sun waning just past midday shined down upon the residents thereof, reflecting off the glass of tall buildings to amplify its effects. How Japan could fluctuate so wildly from tropical heat to below freezing was beyond her, but it sure beat the literal hell out of weather in the Underworld.

This was a rare day off for Calliope, not just from her normal day job in the livestreaming industry, but also from all of her other responsibilities. No music production, no video editing, no reaping, though she hadn't done that last one in quite some time. She may as well have been a retired grim reaper, at this point. Even an avatar of death only had so much time in the day. The other hats she wore kept fate's veil off of her head.

That veil was gone quite literally, on this day. In an attempt to blend in, as she often did, Calliope wore casual clothes. A black tank top, high-waisted blue jeans, simple grey sneakers, and an elegant black leather handbag formed her ensemble. A stark contrast indeed from the extravagant and—honestly— _revealing_ spiky black dress and stockings she normally wore.

A deep breath filled her nostrils, one that she held for a good few seconds before letting out. She couldn't remember the last time she'd just taken a walk, been a part of normal society for a few minutes. Though, that simple walk wasn't necessarily her goal. It was lunchtime, after all, and damned if she hadn't developed a taste for chicken nuggets recently. The stroll was just a benefit, an excuse to go on foot rather than by car.

A sound very much like a woman's scream emanated from behind her. Now, any city tended to be full of strange noises, and Calliope was so used such utterances specifically, that she not only ignored it, but barely even let it register on her consciousness. A few of those around her snapped their heads around, though, not quite so accustomed to agonized cries. Only when several other screams rose up, and then those became a chorus, did she turn her head. Calli had no way of knowing how greatly she would come to regret this decision.

The scene which unfolded before her defied all logical understanding of how the real world supposedly operated. Through the throngs she saw brilliant flashes of ice blue light accentuated by screams and what appeared to be the occasional spray of blood. What had once been an orderly sidewalk turned into a hurricane as people fled the scene, led by herd mentality to stay on the concrete instead of filter through streets or alleyways.

But Calli did not move. She stood still as a statue, white knuckles on her handbag as she starred at the commotion before her. Now that the crowd had thinned, she got a decent view of the problem. Ran rampant did hulking figures of pale blue exoskeletons—each at least six feet tall—with long limbs, very broad shoulders, and neckless heads tucked between these armored shoulders. Each of them had a weapon of some sort, machetes, longswords, axes, clubs, mauls, similar things. They used these implements to cut down the innocent citizens who could not flee fast enough. Those with blades did not make normal wounds, however. Instead, the flesh they cut away appeared to vanish entirely as if the matter itself ceased to exist.

Calliope looked upon the scene with horror in her pink eyes. She should have been happy about this. As a grim reaper, all of this death should have been a good thing. However, as more and more people fell to these monsters, she felt only disgusted terror. They were innocent men, women, and children, just going about their daily lives. This wasn't their time. They didn't deserve this. And yet, they fell in droves to their unknowable enemies.

What should she do? She had the power to help, to maybe even put an end to this, but should she? Part of her job deigned she should not interfere with the affairs of mortals. What the humans did with their daily lives, for good or ill, was not of her concern. But, this was not their choice. The people were not doing this to themselves. Instead, it was thrust upon them. The role of death is balance, in the end. If creatures like this threatened that balance, then was it not her duty to intervene?

A police officer drew his revolver and began taking shots at a creature. The bullets, though sizable enough to put a stop to any regular criminal, sparked off of the armored hide. The monster hardly seemed fazed as it walked over to the cop. All five rounds expended, the officer attempted to reload, but was literally cut off by a slice through his midsection.

At his death, Calliope took a step forward, but stopped short. In the face of his demise, this human had showed far more courage than she had. Even though it was hopeless, he still fought. He died with honor. It was more than she could say for herself. Yet, there she remained, paralyzed not by fear, but indecision.

While she looked on unsure of what to do, someone else took the initiative. Down the opposite side of the street a pair of fiery streaks like twin afterburners rocketed toward the scene. Heat from them brushed along her face, disturbed her flowing pink hair. Calliope realized these flames shot from the feet of a person a moment before they reached the thing that had just killed the police officer. Clearly, this person had been trying to save the man, but was too late. In retribution, the new arrival hovered in place and aimed two closed fists at the monster. Blazing gouts encompassed the creature. It cried a raspy scream of agony before setting about to writhe on the asphalt. Only for a second, however, before the impossibly hot flames ended its life. The person—this _hero—_ paused there for a beat before moving on to the next target, a refrain just long enough for Calliope to get a good look. That orange hair could only belong to one person.

"Kusotori?" She breathed.

No, that was impossible. Kiara was the nice one, the chaotic gentle soul who talked a big game but would never hurt a fly. Why had she been the one to rush off into battle where Calliope feared tread? And since when did she have fire powers?

These questions swirled around the reaper's head as she watched Takanashi Kiara burn down a pair of enemies, a fist for each. She spun to avoid a thrown spear and then, out of her spin, used a swipe of her hand to trail fire and deflect a sword. In the same motion, she leveled a flaming fist to the bladesman, one which punched a hole straight through his head. Blue viscera burned away from her hand as Kiara T-posed to burn down foes approaching from either side. She then jetted up into the air, spinning to create a helix of fire. Enemies charging at her found themselves caught up by it, charred to death instead of surrounding her like they'd surely hoped. Kiara pushed down the street, further into the thick of things, left behind enemies chasing after.

Before she was even aware of her actions, Calliope had dropped her handbag. Just like her previous misgivings, the items inside it didn't matter anymore. Her best friend gave her all to protect the citizens. Moreover, she was in trouble. So, Calli sprinted into the fray. From the Underworld she summoned to hand her scythe—a weapon with a crooked haft and spiked half-moon below the long blade—and dove headfirst. Fuck it.

One of the monsters previously pursuing Kiara noticed her approach at the last second. It raised a sword to slash, but Calliope ducked low in her sprint, half sliding as she spun and sliced to take it out at the knees. Her scythe passed cleanly through the hard carapace, assuaging one of her fears. These things may have been invulnerable to bullets, but could not avoid death itself. She had a fighting chance.

Coming out of her spin, she cleaved a monster from shoulder to hip in a spray of dark blue blood. This got the attention of the others. Two came at her. The one on her right attempted to slash down at her. Calliope blocked with her scythe held above her head at a sharp angle. As the encroaching blade slid off, she whipped the butt end of her weapon around to smack the leftward monster in the chest. This motion turned into a twirl of the weapon, one that sliced upward through the left opponent, and down through the right.

Calliope advanced, slicing down twice in an X pattern to cut a monster each. Bending backwards to avoid a twisted hatchet, she counterattacked, swiping the attacker in the process. She jabbed out with the opposite end to halt the approach of a monster on the other side. A back kick as she straightened did the same to one behind her. A spin took them both out in a single, broad diagonal.

She vertically blocked a machete swing to her left, and then cranked her weapon down through the attacker. The movement flowed into a helicopter spin of her scythe that took out the enemies charging from all sides. Perhaps not quite so flashy as her friend, Calli still had her own ways of preventing an encirclement.

Her weapon then changed. In a flash of black light and soot, it no longer was a scythe, but instead a javelin. With a short hop she chucked it at an enemy, who clearly did not expect a projectile attack. It stabbed through the thing's chest as another charged from the same direction. Now unarmed, Calliope darted in beneath its wide swing. A trio of straight punches to it's abdomen saw it reel back.

Calli held out her hand. The spear turned to ash, vanishing from the creature it impaled to reappear in her hand. It had changed again, however, to take on now the appearance of a medieval flail. The monster she'd punched recovered and came in again. Calli used her new ball and chain weapon trap its wrist, allowing her to dodge and pull him off-balance. A sidekick from her stopped another from attacking. A third creature came at her other side. Calliope manipulated her trapped opponent's hand to slice up through the leg of this tertiary encroaching threat. Thankfully, these weapons appeared to work just as well on the entities themselves as they did on humans. Seeing this, Calli grabbed the enemy's trapped wrist, broke its forearm with a punch, and shoved the shortsword through the screaming gullet of its wielder.

It was faster to banish and recall her weapon than to manually unwrap it free. Retaining the form of a flail as it returned, Calliope used this to rush down a trio of monsters, beating them mercilessly with her ball and chain. Though foreign and strange, armor was still armor. Blunt force worked wonders for smashing through it. The things fell before her, bludgeoned to a pulp.

Though great for attack, flails suffered defensively. This in mind, she formed it back into a scythe just in time to redirect a thrust. As before, she wrenched her blade down through the aggressor. She attempted to strike down at an enemy on her right, but it was too close. Instead of cutting straight through, contact with the haft sent it face-first into the ground while the blade pierced its lower back. Calliope aimed an upkick at an enemy on her left, but another one came also at her from behind. The scythe acted as a sort of makeshift balance beam allowing her to pull herself up into a handstand upon it. In the same motion she spun around, legs extended to beat back both of these opponents. As she landed on the opposite side of her scythe, she grabbed the implement and hauled it up, a wide circle that blocked a strike from the enemy now in front of her and then bifurcated the one to her side.

The remaining creature drew back for another strike, but a flaming spear stopped it short. Having clearly announced her presence, Kiara landed to the right of and just behind Calliope. The two girls locked surprised expressions for a split second before springing into action.

Calli sliced through a monster as it dared charge at her. Kiara burned another one with twin gouts of white hot flame, allowing the blaze to propel her backward. Calliope cut down two more enemies, and gave a crescent kick to a third who got inside her defenses. While this one half-turned and stumbled away, Kiara soared over it. Her flames cut a line straight up and through it, burning away everything they touched, rending it in twain with smoke and fire. She then swept a wide arc before her, cracking a pair of flaming whips that burned away those foolish enough to stand before.

Calli charged through this blaze, jumping and dodging as she went, cutting down those lucky enough to survive the inferno. A backflip saw Kiara soaring beneath her to burn away more foes, while Calliope lashed out at anyone within reach. Kiara doubled back, a great loop through the air, to touch ground behind Calliope moments after the latter came down herself.

Here they stood, a final stand back-to-back, practically pressed together against the horde. Calliope cut one, Kiara burned another. They spun in a slow circle, slicing, burning, hacking, scorching, death and fire, fate and phoenix, friends turned to warriors trapped in a deadly dance. The monsters fought back, try as they might, for what little good it did them. One by one and sometimes more they fell to the overwhelming onslaught. Together the two women accomplished what would have taken twice as long alone.

And then it was over. Calliope's blade passed through the body of a creature. As it fell in two pieces, she spun around in search of her next opponent, but instead found none. All around them were the still corpses of those fallen, cut and burned, dead. A heavy scent filled the air, not unlike hot pitch, undercut with the distinct notes of burnt bone. Not a soul stirred, save for the girls left standing. They were safe, for the moment. Calliope banished her weapon. As it turned to ash blowing on the wind, she turned to her friend.

"Kiara, are you—"

"Calli, oh my God! What the _fuck_ is happening?"

"Oh good, you're fine," said Calliope, crossing her arms.

"Don't make jokes at me," warned Kiara. "What _were_ those things? Where did they come from?"

"What are you asking me for?" Calliope shot back. "I don't know anything more than you do."

"But you're Death. Aren't you supposed to be omnipotent, or something?"

"That's not how it works." Calliope shook her head. "Probably for the better, really."

"Then go ask your uncle. I'm sure somebody down there knows what's going on," insisted Kiara.

"Did you just tell me to go to hell?" Rather than angry, Calliope couldn't believe her ears.

"What? No, I... I'm sorry. I think I'm just a little excited." Kiara wilted and looked away, a shift which made Calli's own features soften.

"No, I'm sorry. We're a both a little bit worked up right now, and how could we not be? I mean, have you _seen_ these guys?" Calliope made a gesture behind her for emphasis.

Kiara gave a giggle, even though it wasn't funny. "Yeah. But, what are we supposed to do?"

"I don't know. Honestly, I have no idea," Calli said.

"There's still fighting going on, which means there's more of those things. We should go help," decided Kiara. Calliope hadn't noticed it before, but now that her friend brought it up, she could hear screams and gunfire from elsewhere in the city, some of which were disturbingly close. She could still feel the deaths of innocent people all around.

"That's a good idea, but I don't know how many more of those I have in me," Calliope said, referring to the combat they'd just weathered.

"Me neither, but it doesn't matter. A policeman tried to shoot one, but it did nothing. We're the only ones who can hurt them right now."

"I know, I saw that."

"Then come on. We can't just let them destroy our city."

"How do we know that's even what they want?" Argued Calliope. "They might but just trying to cleanse the city or—"

Calliope was stopped short by a new disturbance, the ground shaking an a way thus far unfamiliar. She turned just in time to see a great hole tear in the pavement, punched open by a pair of massive blue fists. These hands planted on the as another creature hauled itself out, identical to the others except easily ten storeys tall. It climbed from the hole to menace down the street at the two girls. As it did, the orifice it had just emerged from closed up, a stitch of the ground as if it were never there in the first place.

"Seriously?" Demanded Kiara.

"I don't think they liked us killing all their dudes," remarked Calli.

Kiara looked rapidly from the monster to Kiara a few times. "You think this is for us?"

"Why else would it pop up right here?" Calliope shrugged.

"You're... awfully calm," observed Kiara.

"I've seen worse."

Kiara hesitated. "You have?"

Calli summoned her scythe. "No."

Any further conversation they may have drummed up ceased when the monster began toward them. It did not lumber along like the kaiju in classic movies. Instead, it barreled toward them at full sprint.

"Shit!" Calli exclaimed, moving her scythe behind her back. "What's the plan Kuso—" Before she could get her question out, Kiara took off in a blaze. Calliope called after her, but the caution fell on deaf ears. With a sigh, she followed after.

Kiara swooped a loose spiral up the towering creature, peppering it with blasts as she went. The thing stopped in place to swat at her like one would a fly, but to no avail. She was too fast, too deft in the air, dodging nimbly with graceful ease.

This arrest of motion gave Calliope the opening she wanted. Her scythe transformed into an ice pick. She then leapt at the monster. Pick held in both hands, she slammed it into the thing's calf. There it stuck while she coiled her body up to it. Legs planted against the carapace, she timed a jump to the next leg to repeat the process. Twice more did she jump, well-placed hops to climb her further up the monster.

She made it almost all the way up the left leg before her gamble came literally crashing down. Calliope lined up her hop, made the proper mental calculations, and launched off, but a flash from Kiara changed everything at the last second. The monster stepped back, and in doing so took away Calli's landing platform. A confident leap turned into a flailing fall as she hit her apex and began to descend. The skyscraper before her approached rapidly. At the last second, Calliope summoned enough cognizance to slam her ice pick into one of the windows. Instead of cutting through, however, the material shattered, leaving her to plummet. Calli cried out, a desperate plea for help distilled into a single sound. Kiara either didn't hear, or was too busy, for she continued to assault the head of the monster. All she could do was scream and fall.

Her rump hit first, followed by her head whipping into the pavement. She bounced, managed a tiny spin, and came to rest on her left shoulder. Stars swam in blurry vision while her breaths came in labored gasps. In that moment, all she knew was pain. She had never been hit so hard. Indeed, being far tougher than a normal human, she rarely felt any pain at all, let alone something on this level. She tried to lift her head, but found only the smallest range of motion. Doing anything at all hurt, to the point of tunnel vision. Only recesses of her mind remembered the fight she was in.

High above, Kiara continued the battle. She soared around the giant, throwing fire its way. By its reactions, the blasts did seem to hurt it, but not enough to mean much of anythingas it continued to swipe unsuccessfully at her. Kiara flew down, looped between its legs, and presumably flew up its back, shooting away all the while. She came up over its left shoulder. Calliope yelled in her mind not to, but it was no good. Behind the creature, Kiara wouldn't have been able to see what its hands were doing. The monster swung, and finally made contact. Kiara was an orange streak as she smashed into the same skyscraper Calli had tried to save herself on.

"Kiara!" Calli tried to shout, though it only came out in a wheeze. This was bad. Get up! She had to get up. Kiara was in trouble again. She had to save her.

Mustering what strength remained in her battered body, Calliope pushed herself up on her hands, ignoring the discomfort it caused. She tried to rock onto her knees, but slipped and barely caught herself. There she paused for a moment, too racked with suffering to dare move a muscle. With a stream of obscenities, the reaper slowly got to her feet, labored motions she found entirely to slow.

Summoning her scythe in all of its glory. Limping fast as she could toward the giant, her legs sent agonized protests with every motion. She couldn't see Kiara, but she had to trust that she was alright. Okay, new plan. If Calli couldn't bring herself up to the monster's level, then she would force it down to hers.

The monster seemed to be searching for Kiara. Perfect. Scythe trailing behind her, Calliope ran past and underneath the thing. Her weapon hooked on it's ankle, where it cut partially in but not all the way. Calli let the sudden stop jerk her backward in order to maintain hold of her weapon. She leaned on the handle for support and set her stride, running as if against a powerful wind, each step pulling the blade further and further through the monster's flesh. It cried out in agony, a low rumble that shook the ground. Still, Calli persisted. She let out her own yell, one of effort and the pain burning through her. The monster raised its other foot, looking to stomp her like the bug she was to him. The reaper put all of her remaining strength into it, running faster, pulling harder. Her shouts reached their crescendo as something came free. Whatever resistance she'd been meeting failed, and her scythe passed clean through. Off came the foot in a torrent of that blue liquid. Viscous fluid coated the earth around her. The monster screamed and faltered, slipping on it's own blood to fall on one knee, injured leg out limply behind it.

Calliope changed direction and came at the other leg from behind. Here, she repeated the process. The increased weight on this remaining foot actually made cutting through it easier. He scythe held itself steady as she ran. The monster couldn't easily reach her, as it now lacked the balance to bend over properly. Try as it might, it was helpless to avoid losing the second foot. Attempting to stand, it instead fell backward onto its rear, gushing fountains from both stumps.

Now in front of it again, Calliope spun around and came once more. It was then that she saw Kiara emerge from the wrecked floor of the skyscraper she'd been smacked into. She flew at the downed creature, assaulting it once more with flames. If Calliope was honest with herself, she hadn't really thought about what to do after grounding the enemy. Now, she had an idea.

"Kusotori, catch!" She yelled. For whatever reason, Kiara heard this time and turned to look at her as she flew.

Calliope began the transformation of her scythe, and threw it before it had completed its change so it trailed ash behind. Kiara swooped around and caught it, now in the form of a spear. She considered it for a second, then flew off. Calliope silently begged her to pick up on her plan. Despite her airheaded demeanor, Kiara was whipcrack smart. She would figure it out.

Flying at what must've been full speed, Kiara turned herself into a missile which buried the scythe-turned-spear into the right eye of the beast. It screamed in agony. Fire trailed down the spear to enter the eyeball. Smoke rose from the socket, light shone from inside the head. Pressure in the giant's head built until it had nowhere left to go. The monster's head exploded in a dizzying display of blue blood, smoke and fire. It slammed back into the road, cracking it at the impact.

Kiara jetted back in an attempt to avoid the blue spray, but of course this didn't work. She found herself coated in the stuff. A blazing wreath engulfed her as she flew back to where Calliope stood. The latter could both see and smell blood burning away from her flaming form.

She landed. No words passed between them as Kiara handed back the spear. Calliope took and then banished it. Their eyes met, reaper pink and phoenix purple, where they remained in a stare that said more than any tongue ever could. What could they say, faced with the new reality spiraling out of control all around them?

No thoughts did it justice. Except for one. Kiara had said it herself before. For now, they were the only ones that could hurt these invaders, and so they had a lot of work to do. No matter what they wanted, Calliope would not let them destroy her home or hurt her friends. The Earth belonged to _her_. The mastery of fate was hers. These _things_ would not take that from her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> AUTHOR'S NOTES: I don't know where the idea for this one came from. It just kind of popped into my head, so we have an experiment. I'm not sure where this will go, or if it will be finished, but I do have a soft spot for cute girls kicking ass, so we'll see.
> 
> Kiara's powers were an easy choice. She's a fire bird (chicken) so giving her control over it was a no-brainer. I've done fire powers in a few other works. It's something I'm very familiar with.
> 
> Calliope's were a bit harder to nail down. However, in the past she's made a few mentions to using other weapons besides her scythe, so I took that idea and ran with it. I gave her a transforming scythe along with generic super strength, reflexes, and mild invulnerability.
> 
> Please remember to leave a review. I'm not sure there are many HoloMyth fics like this one, so I'm curious what the response might be.


	2. Episode 2: A

She ran through the streets, fleet soles fast as they could carry her. Long past the point of exhaustion did she sprint, and though her muscles screamed at her to stop, she pressed on. To stop meant uncertainty, violence and death amongst a pile of maimed corpses. With every passing second, more were added to the toll, an ever-rising number to signify the worst day of her life, the end of the world itself. She refused to join them, not so soon after discovering how wonderful the surface could be. Not yet. Just a little while longer, the most time her feet could buy her.

For Gawr Gura, something like this escaped her wildest imaginations. She'd seen it in video games, of course. How many versions of this exact thing had she played through? Dozens, at least. It wasn't exactly a new concept. But, that's what it always was, a concept. She never thought something like this would be real, that it even _could_ be. Yet, as the screams of death and report of gunfire in vain filled her ears, she knew for a fact just how real this was.

She had escaped from the main location of the disaster some time ago. That didn't slow her down, though. If anything, it spurred her even faster forward. If she were away from the epicenter, then that just made her safer, right? In that respect, then it made sense to get even further away. Gura doubted her ability to escape altogether, though. She'd been there when it happened, seen the great holes tear through the ground, watched as hulking abominations poured out, only for the earthen wounds to heal when it was done. This, too, was something she'd seen in a game. How could she hope to escape from beings that could spring up from literally anywhere?

Her theory was unfortunately supported by the occasional scream from what must have been just a street over, or the gunshots that sounded right next to her. One thing her home of Atlantis did not have was firearms. She had never fired one, or even been close by when one went off, but she knew they had to be loud. Maybe the shots weren't so close, then? Even as this notion crossed her mind, she knew it to be false. Most rational thoughts she had right then were self-serving desperate attempts at remaining an acceptable mix of both calm and sane. They failed.

From her right, Gura heard footsteps approaching at a rapid pace, an odd sort of stuttered sprint from what she could tell. The Atlantian shark-girl tossed herself into an alleyway and pressed up against the building now behind her. Arrested of motion, she finally got a feel for how hard she was breathing, how fast her heart beat, how much her legs burned. She'd been running for so long, she'd forgotten exactly when her sprint had begun. Though it definitely meant the dawn of something bad, she cherished these few moments to catch her breath.

The steps quickly came upon her. Gura made a move to look out behind her, but pulled back at the last second. No use hiding if she just revealed herself. Instead, she settled for simply listening. It was probably better that way. If the emergence of these monsters was any proof, then the less she witnessed, the better.

What she saw next challenged that notion. Past the alley burst a man, dragging by the hand a boy who must've been his young son. Nipping at their heels were a pair of the monsters, hulking, wide, and covered in a pale blue carapace. Gura closed her eyes, told herself to ignore it, to avoid the risk of peeking out. It wasn't her problem. But, she couldn't. Her shark heart had to see what happened next. She leaned out just enough to see with one eye the scene that unfolded.

The little boy tripped, and in doing so brought the father down with him, who landed hard on his knees. The creatures were on them in a split-second. The father clutched his son close, a last-ditch effort to protect the child. The monsters did not strike right away. Instead, they lorded over their kill, speaking some sort of guttural language, seemingly jovial about the idea of taking two innocent lives.

Gura watched them with a million thoughts crossing through her mind. Fearful blood pounded in her ears. Her eyes darted all around, upon and away from the scene, unsure where to look. Should she step in? She had seen police officers shoot at the things, watched as their bullets did nothing. What help could she hope to be, then? She wasn't a fighter, not like her far away friends Calliope or Kiara. Still, if she didn't help then that little boy would surely meet his end. Gura knew she could outrun the beasts, and had for quite some time. If this failed, she could still run away. But she couldn't ignore this, not now. There was no one else around to help, no one who even dared to try. It fell on her, then. She stepped from the alley.

Gura lifted her right hand above her head, palm up, fingers out. From the ground rose an impossible splash of water, which gave way to a purple octopus. Gura thrust her hand out, and the cephalopod soared through the air toward the rightmost creature attacking the father and son. She then mimicked the motion with her left hand, but out of this splash of water came a bull shark. This was sent after the leftmost.

The octopus wrapped all eight of its tentacles in a death grip around the right monster, who fell to the ground struggling in vain. The one still standing had just enough time to look over before a flying bull shark hit it chest first. The monster's club went skittering across the street while, try as it might, it couldn't save itself from being mauled. The bull shark bit at its arms, shoulders, and torso, an angry whirlwind of teeth and fins, a hundred-hundred little puncture wounds that drew bloody screams from the dying monster.

Gura looked at her left hand. Did she really do that? Between the agonized calls from the left monster, and the feeble struggling of the right, she had to wonder if all that pain had actually been caused by her. A great cracking pierced the air. After startling out of her skin, Gura looked up to see the octopus had crushed through the carapace of its target and was beginning to gather up the remains. Meanwhile, the bull shark continued to assault its meal, which had a terrible bite on its head and wasn't moving much.

Dead. These two living beings were dead because of _her_. Sure, they had been about to do something terrible, and their brethren currently were doing such things, but they still had been alive at some point. And Gura had taken that from them. She'd never killed anything bigger than a spider before, and spiders didn't have a conscience. They didn't think, or feel, or love. Did these creatures? Did Gura really have the right to snuff them out?

Another sound met her ears. A whimpering, small and debile. She looked over to see the father still cradling his son. Both shook with tears. They were afraid, shocked, witness to something gruesome and horrible. That's when it hit home, the reason Gura had stepped in at all. These two innocents, this man and little boy, were in danger. Gura helped them because no one else would. Her job, then was not over. Whatever reservation she had about fighting, about killing, mattered not. Maybe she couldn't save the whole city, but she could save these two. She approached.

As Gura closed on them, she gave a swipe of her right hand. Both the bull shark and the octopus disappeared, leaving behind their grizzly work. Gura made a point to avoid looking at the fresh corpses as she came upon her charges.

"Hey," she said, and immediately regretted it.

"Stay back, don't hurt us!" The father said, clutching his son closer.

"I don't wanna hurt you," Gura began, "I just saved you."

"No, stay away!" The father was incensed, too afraid for reason.

Gura took a small step back, a bewildered expression on her face. This wasn't the reaction she expected, but maybe it should've been. If she just saw a bunch of hulking monstrosities get attacked by sea creatures _on land,_ she probably wouldn't know how to react either. And, this man had a child to worry about. She couldn't blame him for being defensive.

"She made the sharks, daddy," said the little boy, a small voice muffled by the arms enveloping him.

The father pulled back to look at his boy. "What?"

"Yeah, I saw it. She raised her hands, and there was some water, and then a shark came out!" Exclaimed the child.

"That was you?" The man said to Gura. Of course, he'd been so worried about protecting his son, that he probably hadn't seen Gura summon anything.

"It was me," confirmed the girl.

"And you're not gonna hurt us?" Asked the father.

"No, I only wanna help you. I don't know, but I think I'm your best chance at finding safety."

"Yeah," the father said. "Yeah, okay, sure. I think. I don't know. What's going on? Who are you?"

"I'm... I'm a friend." She paused. "Look, I don't know any more than you do, but I know we can't just sit here. We have to keep moving." Gura surprised herself, with that. She sounded like a video game character, which was probably what she unconsciously drew from.

"Okay, that makes sense." The father finally uncoiled himself from the boy and turned his back to him. "Hop on, Timmy. It'll be faster if I carry you."

The boy, Timmy, glanced at his dad, and then at Gura. She smiled, careful not to show her sharp teeth, and nodded. Why the boy listened to her and not his own parent, she didn't know, but her encouragement seemed to work. He place hands upon his father's shoulders and allowed his rump to be supported by strong hands. The father stood, the two a unit as he shot a look toward Gura.

She froze there, for a second, under his gaze. The realization that she had no plan, no idea what she was doing, came crashing down. What was their next step? Where did they go? Gura made it sound like she could protect them, but could she really? No, no. None of that mattered. Whatever reservations she may have had, whatever uncertainty she felt, all of it had to be flushed away. This was her lot, these two her responsibility. It was time to do Atlantis proud. It was time to step up, despite how every fiber of her being told her not to. No one was ever prepared for change, after all. In this moment, she had to just go. She began to jog down the street, the same direction she had been running. The father kept pace.

Though, the only reason Gura continued on this path was that it seemed rather empty of bad guys. The invasion, as it were, started at some point well behind her, so it made sense that the enemy hadn't quite made it this far yet. Except that it didn't. They could pop out of the ground, she'd seen it with her own eyes. So why, then, would the have to worry about making progress? Why not just attack the entire city all at once?

It was probably best to accept that these creatures were unknowable. What they did likely made perfect sense to them, but not to a surface-dweller, because they were intrinsically different people. Gura could have said the same thing about herself when she first came out of the water to live on land. But that wasn't a good enough explanation, not for her. Knowledge was power, after all. How could she ever hope to defeat an opponent she knew nothing about?

She had to get her mind off such thoughts, lest they consume her. Less of the bigger picture, more of the here and now. The best way to do that, in her mind, was to focus on the people she'd fallen into responsibility for.

"So, what's your name?" She asked of the man, doing her best to keep the labour out of her breath.

"Samuel. Sam, please," the man said.

"Sam," she repeated. "I'm Gura."

"Gura?" He raised an eyebrow. "Is that foreign?"

"Yeah. You—" she looked away, "you could say that, yeah." How could this half-human explain to him that she came from a place that supposedly didn't exist?

They ran no for an indeterminate amount of time, not because it was so long or short, but because Gura wasn't paying attention. She'd started talking to Sam in an attempt to distract herself, but that only worked for the short duration of their conversation. Everything she could think of to say was related to the incident at hand, which was the exact _opposite_ of her goal with speaking in the first place.

Settling for silence didn't sound so bad, though, when she got to thinking about it. It allowed her a chance to focus, to choose a path, which she definitely should have been doing in the first place instead of running in a random direction. Though, when the entire city was likely under siege, or would be at one point or another, did the direction really make a difference? They'd all be better served if she tried to find a safe place for them. Problem was, there were no safe places, not against a force that could be anywhere at any time. Save for up in the sky, nowhere was safe.

...Maybe a plane wasn't a such a bad idea, at least for a temporary solution? She could probably figure out how to fly one. Just like Flight Simulator, right? They _could_ make it to the airport from this direction. An awful plan, sure, but better than nothing. Hopefully she thought of something better along the way.

"So, Gura," Sam interrupted her train of thought. "Any idea what these things are?"

"You mean, other than weird giant bone-men? No idea," she shook her head. "I don't know anything more than you do."

"I didn't think so," said Sam. "What about that thing you did?"

"What thing?" Gura made a half-hearted attempt at deflection.

"You know, summoning sharks and stuff." Sam paused to pant from exhaustion. "I didn't see it happen, but there was definitely a shark. How did you do it?"

Gura hesitated. "You wouldn't believe me if I told you."

"I think I'd believe pretty much anything, right about now," countered Sam.

"Good point."

For a second, Gura considered actually telling him. In all her time on the surface, she'd never spoken face-to-face with someone about her homeland. This might be her perfect opportunity, the one moment amongst all others were someone might actually be primed to take her seriously. It would be nice. She didn't tell him, though, not because of trepidation, but interruption.

Screams broke out from up ahead, impossible to tell exactly where or how far away with how they echoed off the city buildings. While Gura couldn't see anything, the fact that they were close enough to hear brought her to a screeching halt. Sam continued running a few steps past her before he, too, stopped. He looked back at her, concern and haste in his eyes. Little Timmy covered his ears to block out the screaming. Gura glanced around for a heartbeat before making a snap decision.

"This way!" She ordered, and darted down an alleyway.

The could stick to alleys for a few blocks to get away from whatever was happening in front of them. Gura scurried down the narrow passage, for once thankful for her short thin frame. Sam didn't have quite the same luck. A glance behind saw him shrugging his shoulders with elbows tucked in at an uncomfortable angle in an attempt to squeeze through. He made good time, still. Gura only had to slow down a little bit.

She made it four steps out into the street before stopping in her tracks. She was vaguely aware of Sam almost running into her, for what she saw up the street captivated her far more. A squad of eight monsters, hulking and heavily armed, approached. They seemed to have been combing the roads for survivors, only for their quarry to fall into their laps. One of them pointed with his long blade and shouted in that rumbling language to his peers. With the precision of well-trained soldiers, they turned their attentions to the newcomers just long enough to assess the situation. Then, they barreled toward them.

"Gura..." Sam said.

She didn't even think. Whatever dread she may have felt over fighting before had no place in her mind. The moment for something like that had passed. Not even the pounding in her chest registered. The time for fear was over. This was the time to fight. She squared her stance against the incoming horde, and put up her left arm to shield Sam from it.

"Get back," she said. "If they get by me, run."

Gura didn't look behind her to see if Sam listened, but she needn't. His footsteps in the opposite direction were all the indication she needed. With him out of the way, she took a single step forward. She'd never been a fighter, but fate calls us in mysterious ways. This little skirmish was now her own personal war, and she intended to win it.

Standing square against the monsters, Gura raised both hands at the same time. Out from the splash on her right appeared an eel, and the left produced a stingray. The eel went to wrap up an enemy directly in front of it, while the ray flew tail-first to impale through another's eyeball. The constricted foe began to writhe and splutter as organic bindings pumped electricity through its veins. These things, whatever they may have been, were vulnerable to shock. Important information for later, perhaps.

A third came at her straight on. Gura threw up an Atlantic cod to smack it in the chest, a hit just hard enough to arrest its momentum. Two more monsters came from either side. Gura threw a blowfish at each, little spines that stuck into their faces, though she doubted the toxin contained therein would do much damage.

The cod-smacked monster recovered and made a swing at her with its longsword. Gura stepped back and summoned a swordfish into both hands at the same time. She held out this fish so the encroaching blade passed right through just beneath the nose. As sad but worthy sacrifice, as it gave her a weapon. She grasped the improvised sword at the grizzly base, careful not to let her hand slide along it. Gura then jumped forward, impaling the monster through the chest while also using its size to catch herself. She took a big step back and attempted to wrest her weapon, but it was stuck. No time to bother with it, as the other enemies approached. She let go, and thus it fell back with her fallen opponent.

The two with the blowfish stuck in them seemed to still be struggling with the encumberment, which left three to charge at her as a unit. They were much closer than she would have liked.

"A!" Gura yelled in a panic. She threw up her arms to toss a dolphin at them, sidelong. It collided with all three, bowling them over, an added tail whip for the one on that end.

Gura would have liked to call upon something heavier to crush them on the ground, but missed the chance as two of the remaining monsters threw away their blowfish. The rightmost charged at her, followed a step behind by the other one. Gura stopped one with another fish uppercut, and sicked a leopard seal on the other. The seal swam through the air as if it were water to assault the monster with little bites.

With that one occupied, Gura turned her attention on the closest remaining combatant. It came at her, but she threw a jellyfish at its ankle. It missed a step and came down hard on that foot, visibly seizing up from the sudden pain. Gura began to rapid-fire summon more Cnidaria to cover the creature until almost its entire front was jellyfish. It went down in a writhing mass, not long for the world.

A yelp in the air indicated to Gura that the leopard seal had lost its battle. She turned just in time to see its severed halves fall to the ground leaking blood and gore. Gura wasted no time in attacking it again. She went for a similar tactic, but this time with a barracuda aimed just above the monster's head. As the fish sailed toward it, Gura squinted, willing this to work. The barracuda whipped around once it was above the monster and sunk its many sharp teeth into that blue skull. They flailed together as the monster was ripped onto its back. The barracuda chomped down several more times, each a blow to crush more bone, all but the second unnecessary.

At this point, the three who had been knocked over by a dolphin finished helping each other up. As a group, they ran at her. Gura was about to try knocking them over again when gunshots rang out. She instinctively crouched down and covered her head with an arm, for what good that would do. When the monsters didn't assault her, she peaked over her elbow. They'd stopped, clearly alarmed by the shots, but not overly bothered as the bullets simply sparked off their natural armor. The one in the middle gave orders to the other two, who then peeled off to go deal with a quartet of SWAT officers slowly advancing from up the street.

The formerly middle creature resumed its run at Gura. She quickly stood up, summoning another octopus along the way. Instead of throwing it immediately, she let the monster close. Nearer and nearer did it come, a long stride to carry it ever further to striking distance. The octopus hovered in front of Gura, awaiting a command. The enemy raised its battleaxe. The moment it did, Gura tossed out the octopus. It wrapped up the exposed target and took it down.

Gura had no interest in waiting around to see which won this mixed-species wrestling match. She dodged around them and sprinted for the officers, caring not for the stray bullets which whizzed past her head. She couldn't let the monsters reach the humans, for the latter put up a valiant yet foolhardy effort. It would not end well for them.

As she ran, Gura summoned a pair of tiger sharks. Each simultaneously rushed toward the remaining enemies. One managed to land a bite on an arm and nearly rip it off as they two fell aground. The other slammed headfirst into a foe to knock it over, before quickly doubling back to sink in its teeth.

"Don't shoot!" Gura shouted at the officers. She slowed to a jog and threw up her hands. "Please, don't shoot. I'm on your side!"

An officer each pointed their submachine guns at the dead monsters currently being devoured by hungry maritime critters. One of them, his weapon lowered, approached Gura.

"What happened here?" The officer asked.

"They attacked us," Gura began. "Please, I was with a man and his son. They should be down the street somewhere. You have to take them to safety!"

The officer talking to her gave a nod to the remaining man with nothing to do. He started past them, picking his way through the bodies and angry ocean life to look for Sam and Timmy.

" _You_ killed all of them?" Gura's officer indicated the fallen monsters.

"I did," confirmed Gura.

"Put your hands down," ordered the officer. "Am I to believe these sharks belong to you, then?"

"They do. I— they do. And the eel, and the barracuda, all of them."

"Okay..." the officer trailed off. "Just what are you?"

"That's a long story," Gura tried to deflect.

"Give me the short version, then," the officer wasn't having it. "I've seen a lot of weird shit today. You look human enough, but you're gonna have to explain what's going on if you expect me to trust you."

Gura hesitated. For the second time in such an extremely short span, she was faced with this same impasse, a chance to reveal her true origin to someone who might actually believe her. But, would this officer be in the same headspace as Sam? The father had been sufficiently freaked out, and probably not in his right mind. What if this police officer kept his thoughts together more effectively? Gura couldn't afford to be arrested.

"Come on, I don't have all day," demanded the officer. "You can explain to me, or to my superior. Choice is yours."

In for a penny, then. Worst case scenario, if she told the officer and he didn't believe her, she'd end up taken back to their headquarters, so she may as well at least try. Or... he'd shoot her. Atlantians were made of pretty tough stuff. Maybe she was bullet-proof? Not exactly a good way to find out. Regardless, Gura opened her mouth to begin her explanation.

"Found the civvies!" Called the SWAT member who had gone to look for Sam and Timmy. Gura closed her eyes and let her mouth slowly shut. Saved by the bell.

She looked behind her to see the father and son walking up next to the armed man. Sam looked visibly shaken as he peered at each of the officers in turn. Timmy did the same, but with awe instead of cautious fear. He was young enough to still find policemen cool, even in a time like this. Gura envied him his innocence.

"What should we do with them, sir?" Asked the officer escorting Sam and Timmy.

"Take them to the shelter, just like the rest," replied the commanding officer, who had done most of the talking up to this point.

"Gura..." Sam trailed off, uncertain.

"Go with them, Sam. You'll be safer inside than out here with me," Gura said.

"Are you sure?" Same sought affirmation.

Gura shook her head. "No, I'm not, but I can't go with you."

"What, why?" Sam blurted.

"We need to take you to the shelter, ma'am," said the commanding officer at the same time.

"No, I'm sorry," denied Gura. "You've all seen it, now. I don't know why, but my summons are able to hurt these things, whatever they are. I don't like the idea of fighting, but if there are more fathers and sons out there, then I'm the only one who can save them."

"Let her go, sir," said one of the men who had yet to speak up. "There's an entire city to worry about, and we need all the help we can get."

The commanding officer considered this for a moment. "Alright, fine. You're on our side, and I guess that's good enough for me."

"Thank you," Gura said with her best sweet smile, again careful to keep her teeth hidden.

"Stay safe out there, citizen. You two, come with us." The officer indicated Sam and Timmy, and began walking up the road back the way they had come.

"Gura, are you sure?" Sam asked again.

"I'm sure," she said. "If I'm being honest, I'm terrified, but I can't just run away. I have to do something."

"That's very noble of you." Sam nodded. "I hope I see you again, when this is all over."

"We will. See ya later, Sam," Gura said.

Sam smiled and began to fall in with the cops.

"Goodbye, shark lady!" Called little Timmy.

Gura gave him a wave as he walked away. She watched them for a few seconds. It wasn't too late. She could change her mind, go to whatever shelter they were destined for and wait it out. That would certainly be the more sane option. But, no. Even as the thought crossed her mind, she knew it to be impossible. That little skirmish back there had proven to her a pair of things, once and for all. One, she had a lot more fight in her than she previously believed. Two, it was now her duty to use that fight for good.

So, she turned and walked. If she were to begin her mission of saving people, she needed to pick up something from her apartment first, if it was still there. Then, she could begin her fight in earnest. Strange, how her life had changed so much in just the past several minutes. Hopefully, she lived to see more changes after this was all said and done.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> AUTHOR'S NOTES: Gura's powers were the hardest to nail down. She's the only one of the EN bunch that doesn't have anything obvious. My first thought was to give her water powers, but I really didn't want to have two elemental controllers on the team. Then I remembered that Gura has made reference to talking to fish. It can be pretty hard to tell when Gura is serious, so she may have been joking, but still I decided to run with that idea and make her a summoner. I think it came out pretty well.
> 
> The upside of this is I've now spent a good amount of time researching different kinds of sea life for her to use. The ocean is a scary place, guys. Never ever go in the water.
> 
> Please remember to leave a review. The power I gave Gura is pretty out of left field. I'll admit I'm nervous how it'll be received.


	3. Episode 3: Let's do The Time Warp

Amelia Watson sat in an uncomfortable blue seat roughly thirty-thousand feet in the air. For a wonder, she had the entire row to herself, but that didn't help much in making the flight any more comfortable. A low hum filled the dim cabin lit only by running lights on the floor. Whispers of sparse conversation sprang up here and there from folks still awake yet respectful of those not. Somewhere in one of the front rows a passenger snored, quite the opposite from those watching their volume, not that this person could really help it. Snoring was one of the many reasons Ame never slept on a plane. She didn't know if it was a problem of hers or not, and she had no intention of finding out while in a tube full of strangers.

For her, this was a historic moment. Or, it would be, once the airplane landed. She was on her way to her first ever off-line collaboration. This flight currently took her on a b-line to Gawr Gura, her colleague and good friend. She could barely focus on her book for the excitement in her heart. Her mind whirled will all of the possibilities, all of the fun she and Gura would have when they finally met in real life. She smiled and bit down to contain a squeal of pure joy. This was going to be the best week of her life. It had been a long flight from London, but it would all be worth in in just a few more hours.

A deep breath in, and then out. She was in public, after all, in a manner of speaking. It wouldn't do to lose her cool amongst all these people, despite how much she very much wished to do so. Amelia idly adjusted her shoulder-length blonde hair, gave her blue eyes a long blink. Recenter, focus, read. Make time go by faster with petty entertainment.

The cabin rumbled for a second, tremors which caused Amelia to screw her eyes shut. She hated turbulence. It always made her feel like the plane was about to go down. She looked out her window and did a double-take. She could have sworn some kind of blue light streaked by toward the cockpit. And was that... _smoke_ silhouetted against the night sky? Was there a monkey on the wing, too? She must've been going crazy.

A loud sound jolted the cabin so hard Amelia hit her head on the seat in front. She shot back to the window. This time there was no mistaking it. Fire billowed smoke out from the engine a few spaces before her. Another force rocked the plane, but this time Amelia managed to catch herself with both hands braced. A pair of explosions, one on each side. The engines were out.

"Everyone remain calm," said a voice over the intercom. "We appear to be having a problem with the engines. I'm gonna try to set her down as gently as possible. Please fasten your seat belts and assume the brace position illustrated on the back of your emergency landing procedures pamphlet."

Orange oxygen masks jettisoned from the ceiling in front of every seat. People screamed and yelled at one another. Two babies cried. Watson did her best to ignore all of this. Instead, she grasped the gold pocket watch hanging around her skirt. Calculations at the speed of light flashed through her cortex. Using her watch to go forward or back in time would only move her and not the plane itself. She'd end up floating in the sky somewhere. Even if she skipped all the way to after the inevitable crash, if she chose the wrong moment, she may reappear spliced within the wreckage. She couldn't save the plane, couldn't stop herself from going down with it. Amelia put her head between her knees, and waited.

One thing no one ever mentioned about air traffic accidents was just how long they took. After all, planes flew at very high altitudes. Falling from such heights didn't happen instantly. They must've been going down for several minutes, long enough for Ame to wonder if they were actually about to crash. But the constant jostle of the cabin met the impossibly loud cacophony of trees snapping against the rapidly intruding machine. Amelia took a deep breath and clenched up. The plane slammed into the ground. She was vaguely aware of whiplash straining her neck before everything went black.

...

Her eyes flung open. Pupils darted this way and that, desperate to take in every little detail all at once. The air smelled of lingering smoke, but she couldn't see any fire from where she sat still strapped in her seat. The cabin was dark, save for the occasional spark of newly exposed wires. Amelia looked up and saw the crumpled ceiling, but also dangles of her own hair. That was when she realized her upside down orientation, and with that came the discomfort of the seat belt digging into her midsection.

Another gaze at the ceiling, a brief moment to visualize her landing. Not a lot of room. This would be tricky. Amelia undid the buckle and let herself fall. The plan had been to swing around so her head landed in the aisle while her feet lay parallel in the row. This, however, did not quite work out as she caught the back of her knee on an armrest, a snag that overturned her so she landed right on her head. Her neck, shoulders, and chest all compressed into one another before she found herself rocking onto her front.

She laid there for a moment, a combination of pain and defeat that kept her still. When that shame passed, she pushed herself up on shaking arms. The more her senses returned, the more her entire body hurt. While missing her first plane crash was a bit of a bummer, going unconscious probably saved her a lot of suffering. Limp bodies took less damage from sudden impacts. A blessing in disguise.

Now resting on her knees, Amelia had wanted to sit there for a moment and recover. A scream cut this notion short. With a loud groan of pain, she got to her feet. The fuselage seemed mostly intact toward the cockpit, but the tail had come off, leaving an exit to her left. Shuffling steps led her toward it. Carefully, she picked her way through the strewn about bags, dislodged chairs, and scattered luggage. She did her best to ignore the body of a little boy impaled to his seat by a piece of metal, along with the young woman with a broken neck, and the crushed emotional support German Shepherd. There doubtless were more corpses in the cabin. Ame locked her gaze forward and picked up the pace best she could. Don't think about them. Focus on the present.

Amelia stepped from the wreckage and onto the grass, where she stood in awe for a moment. The scream had been that of a teenage girl, crying repeatedly into the wind at a lack of anything else to do. A crooked scar snaked its way through the evergreen forest they'd crashed in, while the plane itself created a sort of artificial clearing. She found her burning fire within this tear, as many trees lit up the night.

The tail hadn't fallen far, as it lay at an angle only several feet away from the rest of the plane. The impact must've dislodged it. There were bits of metal, and seats, and baggage everywhere. Some of the latter had been gone through, but most people seemed more concerned with standing around unsure of how to proceed. A passenger who was probably a medial professional of some sort tended best she could to a gash in an older man's arm. A family of four huddled in tears by the tail. A group of men argued amongst themselves, likely each trying to take charge of the situation. It was chaos. It was destruction.

And it was death. Amelia looked to her right and immediately wished she hadn't, for there she found a pile of bodies. Someone—or a group of people—had clearly been moving corpses out of the plane and gathering them all in one spot, which explained the lack of injured still inside. A few people picked through the dead, but most folks seemed to be purposely far from it. Amelia did a quick count. She couldn't be sure without taking a full attendance, but the dead must have numbered more than half the passengers. Passing out had been lucky, indeed. Would she have been with them, otherwise?

Ame took a step in an attempt to find something useful to do, when a scream supplied her with one. Without a second's hesitation, she ran around the left of the ruined fuselage, toward where she thought the sound had originated. There she saw a woman, frozen on the outskirts of the crash site, petrified at the indescribable sight which approached her. A monster the likes of which Amelia had never seen, all blue and hulking and neckless, brandished a red machete-like weapon at his apparent victim.

Watching this creature, Amelia remembered what she had seen just before the plane went down. A blue streak, one which had been—if she recalled correctly—the same shade as whatever this thing was supposed to be. Had it been responsible for bringing the plane down? If so, what was it about to do to this woman?

Fight of flight had kicked in. Her older brother had taught her never to run from a situation like this, that if she was in a position to help someone more vulnerable, than she should do so. With her left hand Ame unlaced the watch hanging from her skirt, and then ran to the scene.

As she ran, Amelia manipulated the dial at the top of the watch. In doing so, she seemed to teleport a few inches across the ground so instead of running in a smooth line, she appeared to glitch around in a jagged pattern. With this watch, more than a simple decoration, she made little jumps forward in time, skips of only a second or two, short but still enough to make her nearly untraceable in transit.

The monster raised its blade. Amelia leaned forward and tried to take bigger strides, anything to cover the distance more quickly. If only she could make larger calculations off the top of her head. Her efforts, however, were not in vain. Instead of bringing down its blow, the thing instead looked up at the blonde quickly approaching him. With what looked like an excited sneer, he backhanded the woman away and walked to instead meet this new threat. Perfect.

Amelia closed the distance, put herself within striking range. The monster swung diagonally downward at her. She made a quick adjustment to her watch, and teleported through time a beat earlier. No longer was she under the blade, but instead stood a step behind, exactly where she had been a second before reaching the monster. It looked down, puzzled, at the air it had just sliced.

A smirk on her face, Amelia lurched forward to punch it square in the chest, a decision she'd immediately regret. It felt like punching a tree, rough and immovable. Sharp pain encompassed her entire hand before proceeding all the way up to her shoulder. She took in a shallow breath. He monster chuckled at her, a low sound like leaves crunching underfoot, and then sliced up. Ame turned her dial and jumped back a few seconds. Even in doing so, she barely escaped in one piece.

She stood now a good few feet away, just far enough to catch her breath. She worked the fingers on her injured right hand. The digits themselves weren't broken, but her knuckles certainly were. Thankfully, she'd incurred such an injury before, and knew how to work past it.

Though painful, this failed attack provided her with valuable information. Whatever this thing was, she had no hope in any reality of hurting it with her bare hands. She needed a weapon. His would do just fine. Step one: Take it from him.

Ame surged up to the unknown creature, a jagged pattern cut by leaps through time, only to stop right in front of it. She gave it a big toothy grin and a chuckle under her breath as it raised up. The monster sliced downward from right to left. Ame phased out of the way, but then reappeared just off its shoulder. With her free hand, she grabbed the machete by the dull edge. Her other, which still held the watch, planted best as possible into the enemy's shoulder. She created rapid fluctuations through time which saw her blink in and out of existence almost faster than the eye could see. At the same time, she pushed and pulled in separate directions. The monster, unable to comprehend the breadth of this attack, failed to keep hold of its weapon. The machete slipped away, one moment in its hand, the next in Amelia's.

Watson wasted no time, as she knew there was none. She spun around—a flair to conserve momentum—and hacked down at the creature. Though she would have liked to hit it in the head, the height difference between them meant she could only reach for the upper chest. Even so, the blade passed cleanly through that strange blue plating, drawing dark azure blood along with it.

The creature, clutching the wound, stumbled back and fell to a knee. Amelia began over to it. Even injured, it could still be a threat. Chances were not a luxury she could afford. She reached the thing and levied her new weapon, but before she could deal a finishing blow, it tilted its head back. From its open mouth bellowed an impossibly deep call, one that rattled Amelia to her very core. It shuttered through the trees, quaked the very ground.

A look of horror in her eyes, Amelia buried her blade within its skull. The sound cut off as the thing slipped down the machete and onto the grass. Too late. How many times had she seen something exactly like this in T.V. and video games? She spun around to face the survivors, who had been looking on with expressions a mix of terror, puzzlement, and wonder. The fools had even gathered around to see what was the fuss. She could scold them later.

"We have to get out of here, now!" Amelia shouted at them as she walked in their direction. "Come on, we have to go, it's not safe!"

"Looks safe to me," said a man with a British accent. "You killed it, didn't you?"

"Didn't you hear what it just did? It was calling for its friends. They'll be here any minute, so come on!"

"How d'you know that?" Asked a man who was painfully Irish. "D'you know what it is?"

"No, I don't, but I'm not an idiot. Do you really think it came here alone?" Ame did her best to reason with him, with all of them.

"How do you know it didn't?" The Irishman shot back.

"I'm not leaving until I get some answers," added a posh woman. "What _is_ that thing?"

"Yeah, and who are you?" Said someone who must've been her daughter.

"I actually managed to find my stuff. You're dreaming if you think I'll leave it behind!" Any other time, this man's Liverpool accent would've been hilarious.

"Even if we do leave, where are we gonna go? Were even _are_ we," asked another woman.

"Everyone just shut up!" Amelia screamed. "I don't have answers for you, and I don't have time to explain, but I know I'm right." She paused to make sure the crowd was silent before continuing. "Before we crashed, I saw something blue streak by my window, something the same color blue as that thing." She pointed to the dead monster. "Whatever it is, I think either it or its friends were responsible for bringing the plane down."

"Ridiculous," the posh woman said. "You really think it shot a plane out of the air with a knife?"

"No, obviously." Amelia was pleading with them at this point. "It must have been flying on something, I don't know."

"So you don't know, but you want us to listen to you?" Someone piped up from the crowd.

"That's not what I—"

"I'm staying right here, thank you very much. The search parties will know where to find us." For emphasis, the posh woman crossed her arms and turned up her chin.

Amelia had _had_ it with her. Leaning forward, she took an aggressive gait toward this vehement detractor.

"Listen up, you _bitch_ , I didn't almost get cut in half just so you could—"

A sound from the trees cut her off. A bassy shout arose from the trees, higher in pitch than the defeated monster's distress call, but undeniably from the same species. And there were a lot of them.

"Son of a— do you believe me now?" Amelia shouted at the crowd.

"That could be anything..." the posh woman tried to argue.

"Lady, shut up," chastised someone from the crowd.

"Everybody run, now!" Amelia instructed.

But it was in vain. The pointless arguing had cost them too much time. The first few creatures crossed the tree line, seemingly identical to the first. More followed close behind, a group of roughly a dozen, but probably more. Like a disorganized mob they charged at the survivors, brandishing weapons of all sorts. Amelia squared her stance toward them.

"Go, get out of here! Hide in the trees," she ordered.

"What about you?" Inquired the Irishman.

Amelia hesitated. "I'll hold them off. I'm the only one that can."

"But—"

"Just go! Before I change my mind."

Amelia didn't look back, didn't take her eyes off the encroaching foe to see if the crowd followed her orders. The relative lack of screams and running footsteps told her, however, that they had not. What a bunch of morons! Since they, for whatever reason, refused to get away from her, she decided to get away from them. Though every fiber of her being rejected the notion, Amelia returned the charge at the aggressors, one short girl against a vicious tide.

She ran on short hops, each step a journey forward or back through time, a path to maker herself unpredictable. The brutes, however, did not slow nor exhibit any signs of restraint. If anything, a few of them sped up in anticipation of this unusual foe. Their mistake.

Honing in on the first one in line, Amelia dropped her pretense to run straight at it. The thing raised its axe, only for Amelia to timeskip forward to him. Where once she had been outside striking distance, in the blink of an eye she had raked her weapon across the beast's middle. It let out a weak little gurgle before doubling over.

One to the left tried to close in. Amelia used the same tactic, waited until it drew back to strike before placing herself within its guard to cut from sternum to hip. A third on the other side met the same fate, but this time with a stab through the heart. Or, at least, where the heart should've been.

An enemy seemed to learn from its fallen comrades because, instead of trying to come straight on, it instead launched an attack from behind. These things were big and strong, but not exactly quiet. Ears more than eyes allowed her to pivot and block its vertical chop. Amelia then shot herself back through the continuum, a move which landed her behind the beast. It had no idea where she'd ended up until a blade sprouted from its chest.

A fiend approached from either side. Amelia traveled forward to stand where she just had stabbed the third foe. These two opponents launched attacks at someone who was there one moment, gone the next, and both managed to hack into the still standing body of their backstabbed compatriot.

Amelia would have liked to take them on, but a soldier directly in front levied a big sword at her. She ducked beneath the swing, stepped in, and countered with a slice of her own. A section of its chest cut away, it fell backward. Not all enemies required tricky time slips.

The two that had just tried to sandwich her went for dual attacks from behind. Again, Amelia traveled backward in time to land behind them. Before she could retaliate, a spear came whizzing through the darkness. Ame spun and tried to dodge, but too late. It grazed past her left shoulder, taking a chunk of flesh along the way. She gasped at the pain and reflexively made a few time jumps to create distance.

Blood streamed down her left arm, soaked through her white dress shirt and brown overcoat. A quartet of bad guys—two of whom, the ones who'd thusly failed to attack—located her and started running. Moving her hand to manipulate the watch within it caused anguish to ripple through the whole arm, but she did it anyway.

A zipping zig-zag granted her an attack at the one furthest on the right. Their tight formation meant they got in each other's way. Amelia used this to her advantage to skip back out of the way, and then forward at another one. She managed to sheer off a leg, but couldn't administer a killing blow before the other two got wise. One of them swung a greataxe, which Ame had to hop away from. She then immediately returned to her previous position, which placed her standing atop the newly delimbed enemy. The axeman clearly hadn't expected her to so suddenly reappear within its swinging arc. It tried to take a step back, not before Amelia struck upward across its middle.

A seemingly unarmed monster, one not from the group currently assailing her, managed to sprint up and tackle her. Their immense size and strength disparity meant he more picked her up and slammed her down than anything else. The initial shoulder impact jostled her, yet even still she managed to run back through time a split-second before hitting the ground. She founder herself standing where she had been just before the desperate grapple, which meant striding upon the one-legged body. She sliced this football-style attacker down the spine.

A hand grabbed at her ankle, which was when Ame realized severing a leg didn't necessarily kill someone. She made a big jump, placing her well backward within the timestream. She honestly couldn't remember what she'd been doing at this point, but it didn't matter. The two that had _still_ failed to strike her were directly in front, now, and she was ready to be rid of them.

A pair of shot hops put her behind the rightmost failure of a villain. She stabbed it through the back, which made the other take notice. Amelia jumped back through time to disorient the monster as it turned to her, and then forward again at its now exposed side. A cut with her machete removed its arm and made a shallow impression in its hide. Unwilling to repeat her mistake from before, Amelia made sure to finish this one with a stab.

She whipped around to where she thought the rest were. Only two more left standing, and a third still injured on the ground. Victory at hand, she went forward. The last two came to meet her. Just as she had predicted, they both tried to swing the moment she was within range. So, as before, Ame phased herself back in more than enough time to avoid them. Once out of the way, she launched a stab at the rightmost, but it raised its polehammer to knock her weapon away. These individuals had seen the entire fight play out. Perhaps they wouldn't be tricked so easily.

The monster on the left swung at her with its longsword. Amelia deflected the blow to one side, a maneuver which—judging by the wide eyes and faltered step—it hadn't been expecting. The best way to subvert expectations? Do the opposite. So, instead of rely in technology, Ame allowed her own skill to shine through. She sliced diagonally up through its chest and out the side, severing an arm in the process.

Amelia comboed this maneuver into a horizontal cut at the final remaining upright soldier. It blocked. Ame took a step forward, gave her machete a twirl to break the bind, and struck over her left shoulder. Her enemy shuffled out of the way, missing by millimeters a fatal blow.

It was the last one. Ame didn't need to worry about continuing the fight. So, instead of charging in again, she hurled her weapon. The blade embedded itself in the creature's chest. The thing looked down at the implement, and back up at her, before crumpling to the ground.

The threats may have passed, but the job was not done. One more still remained. Amelia prised the longsword from the dead fingers of a nearby opponent before turning her attentions of the one-legged monster that still had not died. It crawled toward her, a desperate and pitiful attempt to finish the fight. The least Ame could do was fulfill this final wish. She flipped the sword upside down and plunged it through the back of the brute's skull. It slumped to the ground.

The sword remained planted there in the ground as she stood. A deep breath, and she turned to look at where the rest of the survivors were still gathered. Just like before, they'd crwoded a bit closer, but much less than last time. Just like the idiots they were, they simply gaped at her. Amelia let out the breath she hadn't been aware of holding.

"Do you trust me now?" She shouted at them before shaking her head and turning toward the cockpit.

"Where are you going?" Someone called from the crowd. Amelia stopped short, but did not look back.

"I'm gonna see if I can use the plane's black box to boost my cell signal and get us out of here," she said.

"Will that work?" Asked someone else.

"No, but I have to do _something_." With that, she continued on.

What kind of hell had she literally crashed into? What were those hulking beasts, and where did they cone from? These were questions she likely wouldn't find the answer to within the immediate future. She had to focus on the there and then, on what she could do for herself and the others to maybe get out of this mess. To that end, even a solution that likely wouldn't work was better than nothing. She hoped her friends were okay.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> AUTHOR'S NOTES: Silly Ame. Doesn't she know that planes in action plots always go down? Silly Ame. I had a hard time writing this chapter. Turns out, plane crashes are really complicated. Who'da thunk?
> 
> There's a Nicholas Cage movie called "Next." It, unsurprisingly, isn't very good, but his character in it has a fascinating superpower. He can skip forward or backward in time, but only up to two minutes. That was the impetus for how I decided to depict Ame's fighting style. I hope it came through as well as I wanted it to.
> 
> On an unrelated note, I've discovered that Ollie's intro is the perfect music for writing to. Great tempo to keep up my pace, but not so intrusive I get distracted. Swing Swing, Zomrades.
> 
> Please remember to leave a review.


	4. Episode 4: A Port in the Storm

Calliope Mori walked down the sidewalk, Takanashi Kiara at her right. The latter made her best attempt at hiding her belabored breaths, but Calli knew better. As a paranormal being outside the realms of normal understanding, she didn't really have to worry about physical exhaustion, even though she'd taken a human form. Her reserves of energy were far higher than most people's, regardless of classification. Kiara, however, hadn't the same luxury. Even as a phoenix, and even considering her own mythical abilities, she still had her limits. Fighting their way through the city took a toll on her.

At least the streets here were mostly abandoned. The enemies, those strange invaders, had likely swept through this area already and moved on. If the absence of people wasn't indication enough, the rubble certainly gave that feel. Smashed windows, overturned mail and garbage containers, abandoned cars in various states of disrepair, scorch marks, blood, bodies, and even a few active fires. The enemy had certainly been there before, and probably would be back. All the more reason to be gone as soon as possible.

"Almost there, Kusotori. Almost there," she said in a low voice.

"I'm fine. Don't worry about me," replied Kiara.

Calli grunted under her breath. Kiara was _not_ fine. Anyone who saw her slumped shoulders, hear her panting, could see that. But Kiara would never admit her own weakness. A combination of determination, stubbornness, and sheer willpower meant she'd keep going until her body gave out, and even then would probably find a spark to fight on. While admirable, all of that meant Calli had to keep an eye on her. She wouldn't allow her friend to reach that point of no return, not while she still had a say in the matter.

They continued on for a few minutes more, both to avoid possibly overexerting Kiara, and because they'd just come up on a hill which proved far more challenging to climb than Calli may have expected. But, finding a hill was a good omen. It meant they were on the final stretch. At the top of this hill lay their destination, the end of a literally hard fought road. When they finally did crest it, despite everything that had happened, Calli couldn't stop herself from letting go of a little smile.

"There it is. We made it," she said. Kiara didn't respond, but she knew her orange-haired friend must've been relieved to see her apartment building.

It was a ten storey structure, something smack dab in the middle of the city, meant for small middle-class families and moderately successful business people. Kiara probably fell into the latter category, though she came by that success in a rather non-traditional way. What would her neighbors think if they knew what she did for a living? Well, it probably didn't matter anymore.

As they reached the front door, Calli summoned her weapon. The ashes fell on and around not a scythe, but a gleaming dagger with down swept quillions. She loved her scythe, but such a long weapon would be a detriment in the narrow corridors of a modern building. In that way a dagger meant for stabbing and short cuts as opposed to broad swings suited the environment far more.

"Open the door and then hide behind it. I'll go in first," Calliope ordered.

Kiara looked from her, to the dagger, and back again. "Is that really necessary?"

"We don't know what's in there. Better safe than sorry," Calli argued. Kiara shrugged and made a little noise.

Kiara moved into position at the double-door, grasping the vertical handle on the right side with both hands. Calli placed herself in front of it just outside where she guessed the swinging arc terminated. Kiara locked purple eyes with her, waiting for some kind of signal. Calliope nodded. Her phoenix friend took a deep breath, hesitated for a moment, and pulled open the door.

Calliope burst in. The door hadn't even fully opened before she took a lunging step in. Her gaze darted left and right, an attempt to take in everything all at once. Such intensity, however, was unnecessary. The whitewashed hallway lined with doors was empty, barren except for the reaper now standing within it. Calliope let her stance relax.

"It's clear," she called back to Kiara, who entered the building and slowly closed the door behind herself.

"There's... It's so quiet," Kiara breathed.

"They're hiding," said Calliope. "Can you blame them?"

"No," Kiara said. Calliope despised the defeat in her voice.

"Come on, lets go. You live on the second floor, right?" Calliope said.

"Yeah. I'll lead."

Kiara took a step so Calli could fall in at her left shoulder. She kept a grip on her dagger, ready for absolutely anything that may pop out. These closed doors did suggest that the people inside were simply waiting out the storm, but the truth was Calliope had no idea what lay beyond the sealed passages. There could be more of those strange invaders ransacking the place... very quietly. Perhaps she was being too careful, but how much caution was too much in a situation like this?

There was an elevator at the end of the hall they could have used, but Calli didn't like this idea for two reasons. One, it may not have been safe or stable given the state of the city. Two, why bother when they only have to go one floor up? She could handle a few steps and—even in her weakened state—Kiara probably could as well. The reaper was about to mention all of his when Kiara put them on a clear path for the stairs right of the elevator.

They crested onto the second floor. Calliope knew where she was going from here. Six doors down on the right, the one with an orange sticker on the nameplate. As such, she moved up to Kiara's left shoulder, pointedly putting herself between her friend and that side of the building. She had a plan, one which she mentioned once they were a few steps away.

"Alright, same as before. You open the door and I'll go in," she said.

"What? Why? I don't think they're in my apartment, Calli," replied Kiara.

"Can't be too safe," Calliope argued back. "I'll be quick. Just, please. Indulge me."

Kiara made an annoyed grunt, but offered no other reply. She seemed in a hurry to get home, and who could blame her? Home was familiar. Home was safe. The suggestion that it may have been violated in the same way as the rest of Tokyo definitely didn't go over well with the phoenix. But, Calliope refused to take any unnecessary risks. They'd made it this far. No reason to throw away all of that progress in the name of haste.

They reached the apartment. Kiara turned her key to unlock the door, but then stepped back from it. Calliope took her place, hand on the brass knob. The two girls exchanged a glance. Calli nodded, Kiara nodded back. A deep breath, and the reaper pushed her way in.

The inside of the apartment was just as Calliope remembered. It opened up immediately into the kitchen, an open floorplan that allowed grey carpets to flow into the living room. There, Kiara had set up a long couch and wooden coffee table to the left wall, while a television hung on the right. There wasn't really much else to see in this particular room, which made the job of clearing it easier. Any intruders would've been readily apparent.

Knife at the ready by her hip, Calliope made her way into the domicile and turned down the little doorway leading into the hall. To the left were two doors, one open leading to the bedroom, and one shut diagonally to the right of it for the bathroom. Calli first entered the bedroom, ignoring the miscellaneous articles of clothing strewn about there. Checks in the closet and under the queen mattress set revealed nothing. The bathroom, similarly, was empty.

The only remaining spots in the opposite direction were the laundry nook, which could be cleared with a cursory glance, and the spare room. This latter area did have a bed and dresser, but Calliope knew from experience that neither were used much. Kiara rarely had guests, just like many people in Japan, so this area was largely untouched. Peeks around it in the same way as Kiara's bedroom assured its safety. Satisfied, Calliope went back to the den.

"Alright, come on," she called to Kiara, who slipped into the apartment without a word.

The phoenix disappeared into her bedroom and shut the door. Calliope almost knocked on the door to see if she was okay. Almost. Of _course_ Kiara wasn't okay. Now that she were home, she probably needed a moment to collect herself, to reflect and relax, to unwind. Calli would give her all the time she needed. This entire situation required delicacy, something which neither were good at, but Calliope would try. For her friend.

Instead, she went over to the big picture window on the far side of the living room. The moment she looked through it, a breath caught in her throat. The city was... devastated. Already, after only several hours, basked in the red-orange of early sunset, Tokyo looked like a completely different place. Smoke from numerous fires rose into the sky. Most buildings she could see had some form of damage. One even had gone down completely, though thankfully it appeared to have been smaller than the multi-storey affairs common in this part of town. Somewhere in the distance a flash of gunfire went off, inaudible but plain as day against the smoggy backdrop. Two shots fired before the action ceased. Calliope couldn't see what happened, but she didn't need to. Another fight in vain, another life cut short.

Calliope reached out with her reaper senses, but locating this soul was impossible. The ability to sense death was indispensable for those who proclaimed mastery over it. But here, amongst so much misery and destruction, she'd never be able to find a single man or woman unless she were intimately familiar with them.

The pressure on her conscience, the constant barrage of new souls, it threatened to consume her. There was so much work to be done, so many souls for the ferry, she couldn't keep track. They filled her every waking thought, clogged up her mind until there was nothing left. When she was moving or fighting, they could be ignored. Here in the calm, however? There was no escape, no respite.

She'd never felt anything like this before, nor had she fathomed it to even be possible. Of course, most people probably never thought seemingly subterranean invaders would attack the Earth. People liked to make things like _zombie plans_ , to fantasize about what they would do in certain doomsday scenarios. Calliope even had one herself. It involved literally none of what she'd done thus far. Of course, these enemies weren't zombies—she didn't think—but the same principles should have applied. The old adage was true, then: No plan survives contact with the enemy.

Not that she had a plan beyond all of the inane thing's she'd come up with for simple fun. What could she do against such reckless violence? Where to even start? She was just one reaper, a single magical being against an unknown horde of opponents. Even adding Kiara into the mix made them _two_ magical beings, which may have bettered their odds, but not enough to make a difference.

Calli pulled her miraculously still intact phone from her pocket. Her Discord—a messaging app—was still open. There, she had been making sporadic attempts to keep in touch with her overseas friends. Gawr Gura and Ninomae Ina'nis, the fifth member of their clique, had been exchanging the odd message here and there, mostly letting each other know they were okay. Of course, Calli also provided updates on herself and Kiara.

The last message had been sent not long ago. Calliope shot a quick update their way to let everyone know she and Kiara had made it to the latter's home safely. Part of her wanted to stare at the phone for a moment, not even to necessarily read a reply. Just that her message had been seen would suffice. It would mean that her friends were okay, and nothing bad had happened since the last time she checked. But, no. It did no one any good to worry herself sick. So, she put the phone back in her pocket.

Instead of waiting for a reply, Calliope went back to gazing out the window. The scene hadn't improved, much to her chagrin, but at least it wasn't worse. All she had to do was keep from looking around too much. The more she saw, the further her hope may plummet. Hope and friendship were the only things she clung to at the moment, thus she couldn't afford to lose either.

"I can't believe it..." the voice of Kiara preceded her appearance at Calliope's right.

The phoenix had completed her goal of gathering her weapons, but had also changed clothes. Adorned her now did an orange vest closed over a dress shirt with a blue and white collar folded over, each short enough to reveal her midriff. Detached sleeves—white with blue at the top—covered most of her arms bicep down. Alabaster tights fed into black and red sneakers and covered her legs revealed by an impossibly short orange skirt. Her blue heater shield and ridiculous over-engineered shortsword hung from the left and right of her belt, respectively.

"You're streaming outfit?" Calliope asked, giving Kiara a top-to-bottom glance.

"The belt doesn't go with anything else I own, and I need it to put my weapons on," replied the phoenix.

Typical Kiara, managing to find a compromise between style and function even in situations like this. Calliope flashed her a quick smile before returning to her gaze out the window.

"It hasn't even been that long, and they've already done so much damage," she observed.

Kiara paused for a moment. "I was gonna stream today. It's probably not important anymore."

"I'm not so sure. Something tells me you're employees would still find a way to watch," Calli joked.

Another moment of hesitation, long enough for her to wonder if she'd said something wrong. One of Kiara's greatest strengths was how deeply she cared for those around her. But, it could also be a weakness. She clearly was taking this hard, as anyone would, but it crashed over her specifically like a ton of bricks. Though she made her best effort to appear strong, Calliope had known her long enough to realize she was an inch away from falling. So, her little joke had meant to lighten the mood, but she may have just made things worse.

"Any word from the others?" Kiara asked finally.

"Gura messaged twenty minutes ago. I haven't heard from Ina for an hour, but I'm sure she's busy. I just let them know we made it to your apartment," Calliope explained.

"And Ame?" Kiara gave her a look. The sad pleading in those purple eyes was enough to break this reaper's little heart.

Calliope shook her head. "Nothing. She's the only one who hasn't responded."

Kiara took a deep breath in through her nose before staring out the window again. Then, she took Calliope's hand. Her grip was weak, not enough to actually keep them attached, so Calli had to grab on herself. Normally, the reaper would've rejected the contact with some sort of flustered comment, as was part of their running joke. But that's just what it was, a _joke._ Now seemed hardly the time for something on that level. Kiara needed a bit of comfort, and Calliope was more than glad to give it. Anything for her friend.

They stayed like that for a minute or two, just a couple of girls looking out at the end of the world hand-in-hand. It was nice, despite everything, just to know that Kiara was there. Calli couldn't even begin to process all of the things she may have lost on this day, and she honestly hadn't even really thought about it, but through all of it she still had Kiara. No matter what happened, she would always have her immortal friend to call upon. Right then, that knowledge meant _everything._

"She should've been on her flight when this all happened, right?" Kiara spoke up suddenly, referring to Amelia.

"If the attack happened everywhere all at the same time, then yeah," agreed Calli.

"I hope she's okay." Kiara's voice came through as barely more than a whisper.

"I'm sure she's fine." Calliope shrugged.

"Yeah," Kiara agreed, but her heart wasn't in it.

"Besides, if any of us could survive through all of this, it's Ame. She's probably out there ground pounding these guys right now."

Finally, a smile out of Kiara. It was a small thing, the barest upturn at the corners of her mouth, but a win was still a win, and Calliope accepted it without question. She just wished it lasted a bit longer. A second after Kiara gave in, her worried look returned. In these trying times, even happy thoughts of good friends were only useful for a brief moment of joy.

"What are we gonna do, Calli?" Kiara asked.

"I don't know," Calliope said after a second. "I keep thinking about it and... I just don't know."

"We have to do _something_ , though," insisted Kiara. "We can't just sit here and watch the world burn."

"I know, but what can we do?" Countered Calliope. "There could be millions of them, or even more, and there's only two of us. We can't take on an entire army, regardless of how awesome we are."

Kiara's expression brightened, then. Her eyes widened, mouth popped open, and a breath even caught in her throat.

"What if it wasn't just the two of us," she breathed, and then looked over at Calliope. "What if we had an army of our own?"

"What?" Calliope intoned, meeting Kiara's eyes.

"Think about it. There are soldiers and policemen everywhere trying to fight back, but they can't because they don't have the right weapons. What if we give them the right weapons?" Kiara was excited all of a sudden, reinvigorated by whatever this new plan was.

"And how would we do that?" Prodded Calliope.

"It's super simple. We overturn enemy patrols and positions, steal their weapons, and give them to the police! We arm the citizens," Kiara explained.

"That's a pretty good idea." Calliope turned to her friend. "But, are you sure their weapons can hurt themselves?"

"Yeah, you stabbed that one with its own sword, remember? When you broke his arm."

"Oh, yeah. I did do that, didn't I?" Calliope sounded pensive as she recalled the moment. "Heh, brutal."

"So, what do you think? Should we do it?" There was a pleading in Kiara's voice, one that Calliope couldn't stand. So, the reaper gave her best comforting smile.

"Sure, I think it's a great idea," Calli said with a nod. "But after we rest a little."

"What, rest? Why would we waste time resting? We should go right now," insisted Kiara.

"Kiara, come on. I know you're tired, and you're probably hungry, too. How are you gonna take out an enemy patrol when you can't even move?" Reasoned Calliope.

"But I can move just fine," Kiara argued. "I rested enough just now, and I'm not hungry, I swear—"

She was interrupted by a loud and insistent growl from her stomach. Kiara met Calli's gaze for a second while her cheeks grew progressively redder. She knew whatever ruse she'd been trying to put up right then was well and truly exposed. Calliope just gave her a knowing look, but didn't say anything. No need to embarrass her further.

"Sit down, Kusotori. I'll see if I can find something for us to eat," Calli said.

The reaper made her way into the kitchen. As she walked, she heard a distinct whimper from Kiara followed by a pointed plop down onto the couch. She understood her friend was raring to do with her new idea, which was fine. Calli had to admit she also was excited by this new prospect. It was an amazing idea, after all. But, they needed to take care of themselves first. And, Calliope had to admit she, too, was starting to feel a bit peckish. Even though her reaper-powered human body stored far more energy than a normal person's, she still needed food to make that energy out of. They'd be no use to anyone exhausted. So, she began rifling through Kiara's cabinets. She probably had some rice or something laying around.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> AUTHOR'S NOTES: I'm sorry this chapter took so long coming out. My job became very busy during the holidays, and it hasn't really slowed down since. If anything, it's worse, which doesn't allow much time for writing. I don't want to update only once a month, but I'm not sure I can keep up a hastier schedule.
> 
> Did you like this more introspective chapter? Just because this is an action story, doesn't mean it can't take a moment to slow down. Leave a comment and let me know.


	5. Episode 5: Telephone Line

Her limbs were heavy. Each labored step felt like dragging a ball and chain which only grew bigger with every inch of progress. Whatever pain she may have felt had long since faded to an obscure numbness. Lactic acid which burned away at her muscles no longer registered on her consciousness. Little aches and pains from abused joints and repeated footfalls were but a distant memory, the faintest jolts of discomfort endured only once in a while. Even the effort of breathing into overworked lungs through a long-since parched throat meant nothing to her. She had never been this tired before, never worked herself to the point where her body refused to acknowledge its own exhaustion.

Progress down the hallway was slow. She more leaned against and shuffled along the white popcorn walls than she did actually walk, as the aspect of lifting her feet all the way off the ground seemed utterly impossible. It required a combination of dragging footfalls and hauling herself along by weak fingers to reach the end of the passage. The entire time, she kept her gaze focused on the ire at the end of it, the guaranteed bane of her existence, which was saying something considering what she'd been through so far. But, eventually she reached them, and felt her heart sink what little distance it had to go in reaching the floor.

Stairs. Possibly the worst invention in all of human history. She stood there panting for a moment, staring at them with a mix of disgust and apprehension. Could she really make it up them in her current state? She barely made it down the hall, how could she ever get up a flight of stairs? Two, actually, since the her apartment lay on the third floor.

No, no giving up. No excuse for sucking, as Calli might say. She'd come too far, fought way too hard, to be defeated by _architecture._ All she had to do was get over them, then her home was the first door on the left. One final obstacle, one barrier afore safety and rest. She could do this, she had to do this. With a deep breath in, she took her first step.

It was difficult, raising her foot the small distance to the step, and she ended up partially dragging the toe of her sneaker against the blue-grey carpet. But, she made it, and more easily than she expected. Then, with both hands on the wooden railing, she half pushed and half pulled herself up onto the stair. She waited for a few seconds with both feet on the step before repeating the process, this time faster because she knew what to do.

She could already feel her heart start to pound, feel the protest in knees, and ankles, and arms that had already been pushed far past their limits. But, if she'd learned anything about this day, it was that limits meant nothing. What she could and couldn't do was all in her head. She needed nothing more than the grit and determination to push on. These two things carried her to the third step.

The top of this first bout crested onto a landing before curving to the next flight. Here, she fell to her knees. The effort of climbing those first few stairs drained all of the energy from her legs, and as such she couldn't hold herself up anymore. Even so, there was no time to quit. So close. Only a little further, now. Just two more flights.

The second stage fell just like the first, a progress born from stubbornness more than anything else. She _would_ make it to the top, both because she wanted to and because she _had_ to. This was her one and only plan. There were no backups, no second chances. All she had to do was conquer this hill, then she could figure out her next step.

By the time she reached the third and final obstacle, he knees and thighs had started to burn again. Apparently, she had reached the stage where the numbness went away, and agony once again replaced it. She hadn't even thought that was possible. Moreover, it made one thing very clear. If the adrenaline, or shock, or whatever kept her going had run its course, that likely meant her body was close to shutting down. She had to move fast, before she lost the ability to continue at all.

She literally hauled herself up over the last step, more arms and shoulders than feet. At the top, she ended up on one knee, head hung, breaths shallow, heart beating so hard it hurt. But, she was there. The third floor. She looked over to her door, right in front of her, taunting her. One final push. This was it.

The girl flung herself at the door, pushing off the opposite wall so hard she crashed against the entrance. Tired hands fumbled around in her right pocket to draw out the single key she kept in there. Her entire arm shook as she tried to marry lock to key. Leaning her shoulder up against the door, she grabbed her wrist with her empty hand in an attempt to steady it. This didn't work, of course, but it did improve her aim. She put the key in the lock, twisting both it and the lever-style knob. The door came open.

Gura didn't enter her apartment, so much as she tumbled into it. A last minute tuck kept her from breaking her nose on the carpet, though the collision it caused with her forehead may not have been much preferable. She laid there for a few seconds, breathing heavy face-down against the floor. She was vaguely conscious of her sneakers hanging out into the hallway. Digging her fingernails into the carpet, she hauled herself along it once, and then twice, until she were totally inside the domicile. Then, a flick of her tail closed the door.

Falling asleep right there and then sounded like a great idea. She'd come home with three goals in mind; find her trident, eat something, go to bed. That had been the intended order of operations, but switching things up wouldn't really hurt much. So, with a groan, Gura turned over onto her back. Sleeping on her stomach always made her chest and neck hurt. The last things she needed, in light of everything else, were minor aches and pains.

She stared at the ceiling for an untracked moment, blinking rapidly in an attempt to adjust her eyes to the darkness. The sun had gone down long ago. According to her phone it was three in the morning, though, so it was due to come back up any minute. She had been literally running, helping, and fighting all day. Easily the most work she had ever done at one time, but a lot of people could probably relate to that.

Her efforts during all of this had been on leading people to the authorities. Just like with Sam and his child, all she wanted to do was save people. There had been a lot of fighting along the way, sometimes alongside members of law enforcement or the National Guard, but mostly alone. The blood of many sea creatures carved these paths to safety. Were their sacrifices worth it, considering they hadn't even existed until Gura made them real? She could think about the moral implications of that forever, but this wasn't the time for such things. There were human lives that needed saving. A few fish were not as important as a person. Period.

Just how many people _had_ she saved? It was hard to keep track, considering how her efforts would often gather crowds who saw her as their only shot at reprieve. They were right, for the most part. Gura didn't know why her summons were able to hurt the monsters while bullets did nothing, but she also didn't really care. The why or how was irrelevant. All that mattered was how many people she helped.

But, there were also the ones that she couldn't help. She was only one shark. No matter how powerful, she had limits. There had been an old lady who couldn't keep up. An African-American teenager who insisted on fighting back, no matter how Gura told her otherwise. A father had lost his life so that his two sons could go with her. A young girl managed to follow Gura to safety, but her bunny rabbit did not.

Gura screwed her eyes shut, begging the images to leave her alone. There had been a lot of success that day, sure, but also much failure. Why even try if she couldn't save everyone? She knew that these kinds of thoughts could paralyze her, keep her from going out again if she dwelt on them. There was only so much she could do alone. People died in other parts of the city while she worked, she knew. Even right then, laying on her floor instead of fighting meant more lives were being lost. Gura had to focus on what she _could_ do, the people she _could_ save. Otherwise, she'd either clam up or go crazy. Or both. Probably both.

The phone in her hoodie pocket vibrated. Odd, since she didn't remember turning off the ringer. No matter. It was probably just Calli or Kiara checking up on everyone. They should've been up and about at this time, all the way over in Japan. Gura felt no need to respond immediately. Before she went to bed, sure, but not right then.

A few minutes of laying there in the dark, and her phone began to buzz constantly, which meant it was a phone call and not just a message. With an annoyed grunt, Gura extracted the device from its home. Ina had called her once before, so this was probably her again.

Gura's eyes bulged as she read the caller ID. Not, Ina. Amelia. Gura fumbled with the screen as she rushed to answer it. She brought the device to her ear so fast it almost flew out of her hands.

"Ame?" She said, voice an inch away from breaking.

"Gura, hi," said the voice of Amelia.

Though garbled with static and clearly exhausted, it was her. Upon hearing that voice, Gura burst into tears. Her free hand covered her mouth in an attempt to disguise her strained breaths. To get a phone call from her best friend, at a time like this, it was overwhelming.

"Gura? Can you hear me?" Amelia asked.

"Yes!" Blurted Gura. "Yes, I can hear you."

"That's good. I'm... I'm relieved," Amelia said with a sigh. "Are you okay?"

"Me? What about you? I haven't heard from you all day!" Gura turned the question around on her friend.

"I'm fine. The—" Amelia took a deep breath. "The plane went down."

"WHAT?" Gura shot upright. "Oh my God! Are you okay? What happened? Do you need help? How are you calling me? What—"

"Gura," Amelia cut off her constant stream of questions. "I'm fine. One of the passengers helped me rig up the black box into a sort of mini cell tower. That's how I'm able to call you."

"...Is that even possible?" Gura asked.

"I guess so. I didn't really think it was, but clearly it works," said Amelia.

"That's good, then."

"You never answered my question," Amelia said. "Are you okay?"

"Yeah, I'm okay but... it's bad, Ame. It's really bad," Gura said.

"I know. There's monsters or something all over the place, right?" Amelia said.

"Yeah, I think they're all over the world, attacking every major city. That's what the news says. Calli, Kiara, and Ina have been fighting them."

"They're doing more than that," Amelia said. "One of them brought my plane down, and then more of them attacked us."

"What? How did they shoot down your plane?" Gura asked.

"They didn't _shoot_ it. At least, I don't think," Amelia said. "I think one of them had some sort of flying machine, or something. I didn't get a good look at it, but I think it knocked out our engines somehow."

"Flying machine? Well, that's just great." Gura made no attempt to keep the exasperation from her voice. "But, you're okay? They didn't hurt you?"

"I have a few cuts and bruises, but I'm fine. How about you? You sound really tired."

"Well _yeah_. I've been fighting all day. My summons can hurt these things, for some reason, so I've been helping people," explained Gura. "I just now made it back to my apartment."

"That's good, that you're helping, and I'm glad you're safe," Amelia said, and then paused. "Gura, I need you to do something for me."

"Of course, anything," Gura said.

"I need you to come get me," Amelia said. "The monsters, they know where we are, but the other passengers won't leave until rescue arrives, but I don't think anyone's coming. So, I need _you_ to be the rescue. You're the only person I know who can transport all of us."

"Okay, where are you?" Gura stood up, all of that pain and exhaustion from earlier forgotten, her body reinvigorated by news of her friend.

"I don't know, somewhere in New York? GPS on my phone still works, so I'll give you my coordinates," Amelia said.

"Alright. Let me get my trident, and I'll be on my way," Gura said, already starting toward her bedroom.

"No!" Amelia's shout stopped her in her tracks. "You need to rest first."

"But—"

"Gura, please. How can you help me if you can't even function?" Amelia gave the shark girl a moment to respond, but she did not. "Get some sleep, eat something, and then come get me. I'm literally not going anywhere."

"But what if they attack again?"

"That's just a chance we'll have to take," Amelia said. "Don't worry about me. I'll be fine."

Gura was silent for a time. Don't worry about her? Hardly! How could she _not_ worry? Her first and greatest friend in all of Hololive was alone, scared, and probably cold in the middle of nowhere, under threat of attack at any second, and she said _don't worry_? Ridiculous!

Every fiber of Gura's being wanted to hop on a killer whale, or something, and fly out the doors right then and there. But, she knew Amelia was right. If she left then, she probably wouldn't have made it more than thirty minutes before passing out from a combination of hunger and fatigue. No matter how much she hated to admit it, she'd reached her limit for that day.

"Alright," she finally said after what felt like an eternity. "But as soon as I wake up, I'm coming for you."

"Thank you, Gura. I'll be here, when you arrive," Amelia said.

"See you then," Gura promised.

"See you."

"Bye."

Gura couldn't bring herself to hang up the phone, to terminate the only lifeline she had with her friend. Amelia probably felt the same way, as she sat there for a few seconds of silence. Eventually, though, Amelia gathered up the courage to close out the call.

Gura lowered her phone an inch, stunned by what had just happened. That paralysis only lasted a heartbeat, however, before Gura sprung into action. She went into her bedroom, turned on the ceiling fan, and plopped right down on the mattress. Amelia needed her. She couldn't waste a single second fooling around. She had to get some sleep, eat something quick, gather her trident, and go. Amelia needed her.

…

Amelia sat on a piece of the wing, looking out at the sun where it made an ever-so-slow creep to midday. The fires had gone out in the night, though their smolder still projected ash up into the air. A breeze blew, humid and warm in the late morning hour, hints of what little dew remained one the plants having been cast up by the petite wind.

She'd never been to New England before, and though she wished it were under better circumstances, she had to admit the landscape was beautiful. Evergreen trees, rolling hills, a mountain off to her left—whatever direction that was—and these were only the things she could see. That many people once thought these untamed wilds to be a sort of lost paradise, full of mystery and magic, made sense to her after seeing them first hand. She was glad places like this still existed.

The breeze blew again, stronger this time, and Amelia adjusted her coat. Living in London so long, she should've been used to low temperatures, and she was. Likely, exhaustion was to blame for how cold she felt. Jury-rigging a way to communicate with Gura had taken quite a while, even with the help of another passenger, and as such she'd only had a few hours sleep. Now that she'd awoken, this was how she'd chosen to spend her morning, starring up at the sky waiting to see her friend somewhere over the horizon.

A smile came to her lips. She couldn't describe how much better it made her feel to speak with Gura. The signal from the plane's black box was weak. That it managed to reach anyone at all was a miracle, that it reached Gura was a blessing. Amelia had to admit, of all her friends, she was most worried for the little shark girl. Gura had never been much of a fighter, which was obvious from anyone who watched her streams. The others could take care of themselves just fine, but not her. To know that she was okay made Amelia feel so much better about what had happened to the world. Despite all of the current badness, she could still find something good.

"Daydreaming, are we?" Said a heavily accented voice.

Amelia turned to see the Irishman walk up. He'd been one of the many passengers who argued with her when she was trying to make them leave, but also the only one who showed any sort of concern for her wellbeing both before and after the fight with the monsters. She had learned his name was Patrick, because of _course_ it was. He had a tall and lanky build, receding salt and pepper hair, and a grey rimmed pointy goatee that reminded her very much of the Devil.

"Thinking about my friends," Amelia said as she turned back to the sky.

Patrick stood at her right. "The one who's supposedly coming to get us?"

"Yeah, that one."

"Explain that again," requested Patrick. "She's gonna use whales or something to save us?"

"Exactly."

"On land."

"In the air, actually."

Patrick paused to stare at her. "Yeah, sure. That makes total sense."

"You're seen me time travel, and our plane got taken down by big blue guys. Are flying fish really so hard for you to believe?" Reasoned Ame.

"Not hard to believe, no. Just... a lot to take in," he said.

"Yeah, I get that." Amelia starred out for a few more seconds before turning her gaze to Patrick. "Thank you again for helping me rig up the black box. I couldn't have done it alone."

"Eh, don't mention it," he deflected. "That's why it's always good to have an engineer on hand."

"True, but I didn't even think it was possible. I just wanted to occupy myself with something," insisted Amelia.

"Well, if I'm being honest, I'm just as surprised as you are. Black boxes do have radio bits inside, but but converting that into a cell signal isn't something I ever would have considered."

"I don't think most people have," supplied Ame.

"You're probably right, about that," Patrick agreed. "Good to know it's possible, though. I'm sure my mates back home will get a kick out of it, if I ever make it back." There was no sadness in his voice. A grim joke, in light of everything that happened, and little more.

"Hey, I'm sure you will," Amelia gave him some gentleness, anyway. "Once Gura gets here, we can talk about maybe getting all of you back home."

"I'd like that," Patrick said with a little grin. Amelia would have enjoyed speaking with her new acquaintance for a bit longer, but the universe had other ideas.

A chorus of low, rumbling bellows rose up from the forest. Amelia shot to her feet, staring in the direction of the sound. Dread filled her entire being as her heart threatened to beat itself straight out of her chest. Her mouth hung open, aghast. She knew what this was, had heard it before. It had been the prelude to her first encounter with the strange invaders. This was a battle cry, a call to war.

"No," Patrick breathed, "not again."

"Get everyone to safety, Patrick! Go hide! I'll signal when it's safe," Amelia ordered.

"I can't just leave you here," he argued.

"Just go!" Amelia shouted. "I can handle them. It'll be just like last time."

Patrick hesitated. "Okay. Good luck, Amelia."

She gave him a short not as he sprinted off back toward a group of survivors. Amelia drew the machete she had pilfered in her right hand. In the left, she grabbed her watch, already taking note of the little calculations she'd have to make in the heat of battle.

The first monsters emerged from the trees, followed by a second wave immediately after, each one of them bellowing out a horrifying melody. Amelia took a step back, a move which she disguised as setting her stance by bending her knees. In reality, she was taken aback. There were a _lot_ of them, far more than during the first attack. She hadn't made it out of that one unscathed. What hope did she have here?

But this was no time for fear. There were people counting on her to keep them safe. Amelia kicked herself up into a jog, meeting the enemy head on.

Gura had better get there soon.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> AUTHOR'S NOTES: Hitting you already with that new chapter. Consider this recompense for making you wait so long for the last one. It also helps that Calli just released a song about hard work. Off With Their Heads inspired me to get going, at least this time. Having said that, I don't respond to tough love very well, I never have, so I was afraid this new song would hit me a little too hard. And it did, but after listening to it I came here to reread your comments. It's a good thing I have all of these wonderful words from you, my amazing readers, to give me the support and encouragement I need. You guys made me feel much better.
> 
> Thank you all so much for your kind words, to the KFN for featuring me in their magazine, and for everyone who just reads without saying anything. I've mentioned on other fics that I don't write for myself. I do it for all of you. My readers are my inspiration. Thank you.


	6. Episode 6: The First Stand

Amelia rushed toward a blue tide, dozens of hulking angry monsters ready and willing to spill her blood. They hollered and bellowed with murderous intent a low rumble which threatened to shake the very foundations of the Earth itself. And yet, Amelia pressed on, one blonde girl against a horde of pure death. She would face them head-on, not because she wanted to, but because she had to. Just as these villains wanted to kill her, there were humans who relied on her for safety. She refused to let them down. This was her duty, the hand she'd drawn.

Only a few steps, now. She took a deep breath as her heart beat a drumline in her chest. It wasn't too late to turn back, to come up with another strategy or try to de-escalate. But, no. Deep down, she knew this was the only plan. Something told her these creatures weren't exactly the negotiating type. The only choice was to fight. Amelia made one final check of the sky. The wave crashed up on her.

Several of them hucked spears at her. Amelia pressed buttons on her watch, blinking left and right through the time stream, little manipulations of reality to avoid the incoming missiles. Still dodging, she honed in on the enemy closest to her. This monsters drew back its longsword to swing at her. A button press on her watch, and Amelia snapped out of existence, only to appear a second later with her machete plunged through this creature's sternum. She then phased away from him to slice through the chest of a monster at her left. A third shift, and she cut straight down through another in the opposite direction.

A handaxe came hurtling toward her. She traveled back through the time stream to a point where she'd just been to avoid it, spun to dodge a swipe from an enemy standing closeby there, and ran this one through at the end of her twirl.

One came up behind and tried to impale her with a long spear. She stepped out of the way so this foe instead stabbed its dying brother. Amelia cut the spearman through its armpit and up into its throat. An attack from the rear. They had already surrounded her.

A monster came up behind the one that had just been speared through. With a great shove, Amelia pushed the one wielding the spear into the one it had stabbed, causing the spear to pass further through its target. The encroaching brute hadn't been expecting this, and so joined the kebab, a trio of monsters all collected on a single spear as it ran him through as well.

A pair of foes went for slices at Amelia's back. She shot through time to end up to the right—her left—of the previous triple kill, but did not avoid danger, as doing so put her in the clutches of another completely different two monsters. Amelia dodged a vertical chop from one's axe, but had to blink through time a minuscule fraction of a second to avoid having a mace crash through her skull. She severed the weapon arm of the maceman. While it reeled back, crying in pain spurting dark blue blood, Amelia stepped in, grabbed the haft of the other one's axe, and stabbed it through the chest. She whipped out her blade and in the same motion spun a three-quarter turn to end the maceman's suffering.

She phased back again to avoid an incoming attack, turned her machete to block another one, blinked her way out of a third, and nearly crashed into a fourth pursing creature. It faltered in its attack, surprised at the sudden proximity, which gave Amelia an opportunity to cut it open.

Amelia moved forward in time, stopping just long enough to slice the monster who's attack she had blocked seconds ago. She continued on through the stream in an attempt to get herself out of the circle rapidly closing in on her. The problem with moving forward, however, was that she had no knowledge of the future. She knew what she wanted to do, but had no idea if the near-future of herself actually followed up on those intentions. It was impossible to know where exactly a jump up the time stream would put her.

She ended up nestled right between two monsters who appeared to have been searching for her. All three individuals—Amelia included—locked eyes, each astonished at her sudden appearance. The creatures levied their weapons. Amelia put up her machete to block an axe from her right, while pressing the button on her watch to jump a bit back. However, she couldn't defend against two attacks at once. She blinked through the time stream as the sword from the brute on her left bit into her leg.

Searing pain took the entire limb when Amelia reappeared. Red blood dripped down her wounded left leg. But, though it had been cut deep, it had not been severed. Likely, the only thing which saved it was the jump back through time. She'd have to count her blessings later. The opponents she'd just avoided were still closeby, and they wanted death.

The two came at her simultaneously. Amelia went forward in space, ending up at the spot she'd just been at, which put her behind the moving enemies. Amelia took a step and cut downward at the one on her left, gritting her teeth against the agony that doing so shot up her leg. The swordsman who had cut her once tried to make a second hit. Amelia blinked behind him, only to put herself within striking distance of a third enemy in the process. She stepped and dodged out of this one's attack, but faltered on her wounded leg. She fell to one knee. This third threat raised its club as the swordsman approached. Amelia traveled further back through time, managing to find a clear spot. She stood.

Her shoulders slumped. She bent slightly forward. Each breath came out in a shallow puff. She swallowed and let a sharp exhale out through her nose. Pain was just weakness leaving the body. She had no time to be exhausted, no time to feel pain. There were people to protect, and not to mention her own life to worry about. If she didn't defeat these things, they would kill both herself and the passengers she'd been fighting to keep safe. While that may come to pass, Amelia would not make it easy.

A quintet of monsters, charging abreast, came upon her from the front. Amelia blinked up to stab the on in the middle. She then continued on her path through time, spinning on her good leg when she reappeared to slice through another isolated foe, avoiding the group of five entirely. She blocked a big downward hack from a grand mace, traveled behind this enemy, and sliced him across the back.

Amelia went forward in time, but almost tripped over the body of a felled axeman when she popped back into existence. She took a quick glance around the battlefield, astonished to see how concentrated her path of destruction had been. The blonde detective had never fought so many live opponents in this way at once. It never occurred to her just how little ground she covered by running back and forth through the same moments. The ground was littered the corpses, the grass slick with their blood. Moreover, it allowed the mob to close in on her. Despite knowing not exactly where she would end up, moving so little meant the snare slowly tightened around her. Something to consider for later fights. ...If there _was_ a later.

An incoming blow snapped her out of this introspection. She blocked a big overhead. The monster overextended itself, and Amelia used this opportunity to slip a step and slash it across the abdomen.

She chanced a move forward through time to gain some distance from the loop she was now aware of having created. Predictably, this placed her in the middle of a quartet. There were simply too many monsters to find a decent landing zone in a spot she hadn't physically cleared out yet. She quickly phased back a few feet, ducking preemptively underneath the monster she knew she'd come out next to, and then rising up to slash it vertically.

Doing this gave her an idea. By shooting forward in time, and then immediately going back, she could have some control over where she ended up. It was risky, and required a lot of precise calculations, but worth a try if it gave her an edge. She flung herself forward, past the four she'd just appeared between, and landed somewhere else in the back. A monster drew back to swing at her. Amelia went back just long enough to dodge his attack before countering with a stab.

Yes, that seemed to work rather well! Amelia oriented to the left and leapt forward. She cut down at an unsuspecting enemy as she came out. She blocked an attack and then blinked away toward the plane wreckage, which put her pretty close to the wing piece she had just been sitting on. Here, she managed to score two quick kills before the enemies caught on. She phased back toward the same spot where she'd been doing most of her combat before adopting this new technique. This move had been meant to be unexpected. It ended up as a mistake.

A javelin throw struck true. It pierced her left shoulder, cutting away skin, and flesh, and bone as if they weren't even there. The projectile, shorter and thinner than a proper spear, embedded itself about halfway down its haft before coming to a halt, caught in place by ensnaring muscle.

Amelia cried out and reached for it. Her first instinct had been to pull it out, but remembered that was the exact wrong thing to do with puncture wounds. So, she left it there to trickle blood down her white dress shirt and throb white-hot torment through her entire upper-body. She tried to move her arm, but it couldn't budge even an inch, both for the stick protruding from it and the pain it burned with. Even working her fingers around her watched caused new spikes of agony. But, at least the hand still worked. She still had her one and only advantage.

So preoccupied was she with the pain, she failed to notice the monster charging right up at her. It let out a fierce bellow and reeled back to strike. Amelia gasped and took a step back as the blow fell, cursing herself for not using her watch. The enemy's falcion cut a deep gash through her upper chest, splitting muscle as blood sprayed. Amelia turned her body away from the pain, which diverted the enemy weapon away. It continued on to chop away the piece of javelin sticking out her front. The projectile jiggled in its place, adding to the torture Amelia already felt.

She took a big step back to create distance, only to find another enemy. He shoulders collided with the hulking blue form a moment before it punched her to the ground. Amelia instinctually tried to catch herself with both hands, but the instant anguish caused her elbows to buckle. She propped herself up on her good arm, twisting around to look at the presence she felt looming over her. The monster raised its arming sword. Amelia closed her eyes.

"FOR DUBLIN!" Came a shout which pierced the night.

Amelia opened her eyes, and then blinked, for she couldn't believe them. Patrick swung a red-bladed battleaxe down through the monster preparing to end her life. The thing separated down the middle, falling in uneven halves. The Irishman then proceeded to cut horizontally across another monster who was clearly taken aback by the entrance of this new challenger. When had Patrick managed to loot an enemy weapon, and when did he join the fray?

"On your feet, Amelia!" He shouted while slicing a third foe. "This battle ain't over yet!"

He darted off to slash a forth creature. His attacks were ugly and cumbersome, more like a baseball player swinging a bat, but they had power and reach behind them. As he moved on to pursue a fifth kill, a monster swooped in behind him.

No, Amelia would not let him fall, not after he'd just saved her life. She reached behind her back to rip free what remained of the javelin that had hit her, gritting her teeth for the fire it sent down her arm. In the same motion, she hurled it at the monster threatening Patrick. Her missile aimed straight and true, embedding itself in the attacker's abdomen. It stopped short and toppled over, dying.

Patrick looked behind him, startled at the sound of death just over his shoulder. An amateur move, one that took his focus away from the opponent he'd been just about to fight. The monster raised up to hit him. Amelia time traveled forward up to Patrick and stabbed around him to end the brute's life. It fell as she retracted her blade. Her eyes met with Patrick's.

"Now we're even," she said.

"Ha! Far from it," he retorted.

Their shared moment over, they turned away from each other to continue the fight. Amelia sliced one monster, Patrick hacked down another, and then gave a big swing to a third. Though inefficient, his wide arcs did well to keep enemies away from him. Amelia capitalized on the birth he created to jump forward into a relatively clear spot. She cut away at two opponents before slipping back away from any potential counters. Patrick split open a head, and Amelia blinked into a stab. She blocked, phased back, stepped forward, and cut, while Patrick found another kill. They made a surprisingly good team, for neither really having much a clue what they were doing. Monsters still surrounded them, however, which would be a problem if it wasn't dealt with.

From behind the two of them arose a great battlecry. Amelia turned, expecting more monsters, but instead she found an angry mob of human passengers—survivors from the crash—charging all at once into the melee. Men and women, young and old, each carried a weapon pilfered from the battlefield, some from the current brawl and many from the previous day's combat. They crashed into the rear of the already discombobulated monsters, hacking away at the unprepared enemy.

The daughter of the old woman Amelia had argued with sliced away with an arming sword, while next to her the woman herself swung around a morningstar as if it were a purse. A portly man smashed heads with a big war pick. A man and woman fought next to each other, lashing out with longswords. A man with a handaxe carried a piece of wreckage as a makeshift shield. He tried to block an attack, but the imposing falchion cut straight through the shield and also the arm behind it. While the man screamed, a final blow lopped off the crown of his skull.

Upon seeing all of this, Amelia immediately changed her tactics. She zipped back and forth, attacking not for effect but to create distance. She wanted to cut off the monsters behind her and Patrick, sandwich them between her time traveling antics and the crowd of enraged humans.

Though these people likely had no amount of formal combat training between any of them, they had surprise and desperation on their side. Now that they'd joined the fight, the humans actually _outnumbered_ the monsters. Strange, how the enemy had looked like so many more when Amelia was fighting them alone.

The monstrous back ranks thinned, curtailed by this new threat. The ones before them tried to rush in and offer support, but Amelia kept these at bay through her constant travel back and forth. Any who tried to cross her line either met the tip of her machete or felt the bite of Patrick's axe. They were powerless to help as their overwhelmed brethren fell one after another. How frustrating for them. How good for the humans.

A miniature route formed. The back ranks of the monsters turned tail and ran. Amelia tried to keep them penned in, but neutralizing runners from both sides was too much for one girl to manage. The fleeing creatures filtered in through their ranks, forming one body. The passengers charged up to meet them, crashing again into the undulating blue wall. In this way a proper battle line formed and—injured as she was—Amelia joined in at the very front, Patrick at her left and friendly forces to her back and right.

Amelia tried to make a small blink in time, but ended up between two enemies when she did. In such a dense crowd, it was hard to find space to reappear at. So, she dealt with these threats conventionally. One made a swipe down at her. Amelia blocked its machete with her own, and then quarter turned to avoid a strike from the other monster. She disengaged to quickly stab into the one she'd dodged. Ripping her blade out, she spun around to swing at the other. It blocked and made to counter. Amelia made the smallest of time jumps backward so the attack missed her by millimeters, which she used as an opportunity to lunge for a big vertical slash.

The battlefield evened out. Both sides met in a scrum, a jagged line in the middle of the crash site. An Indian man cut through a monster currently engaged with someone else. Two creatures teamed up to take down an aged gentleman. An African-American woman shoved her spear through a monster, only for another one to take her down from the left. To the right flank, a group of guys in letter jackets made a bit of progress in pushing through the enemy ranks. A squad of monsters rushed to fill in the gap and push back the hooligans.

Amelia managed to rack up a few more kills of her own, blocking and cutting, dodging and stabbing. The support from the others took most of the pressure off her, which gave the blonde girl time to think. She hadn't moved forward much since the proper lines formed, but that was to be expected. If movies taught her anything, battles like this were usually a grind until one side gave ground. She just had to fight and be patient.

But, something else also occurred to her. That the fight hadn't progressed in her favor was actually a bad thing. The humans had enough numbers to partially curl around the monsters, which should have given them an edge, yet clearly it did not. The monsters were holding their ground, meaning they'd managed to negate whatever advantage the humans had.

Amelia took stock of the field around her. One man fell to an axe blade, another to a vicious mace. A woman died on the edge of a sword, while the man who moved in to avenge her met a quick and flourishing return from the same brute. One creature blocked a club with its sabre, grabbed the blunt weapon with its free hand, and then thrust down the now helpless man.

Everywhere she looked, her gaze found the same story. The humans put up an admirable fight, but not good enough. The monsters began a slow creep forward, pushing back their opponents. It was then that Amelia came to a horrifying realization. The only reason she had such an easy time against these invaders was because of her technology. Though they couldn't counter her, these were still most likely professional soldiers. The passengers, on the other hand, were not. Their numbers advantage mattered for naught if they couldn't defeat the monsters in single combat.

Amelia pushed herself forward, desperate to turn the tide as a one-woman army. She hacked and slashed her way through the foes, and managed to actually make some progress. Patrick and a few others followed her path. Together, they managed to cut a narrow point through the enemy lines. But, the wings began to recede as the humans there couldn't follow her momentum from so far away. Amelia had no choice but to fall back several steps. Patrick came with her, but most of the others who had followed did not. Suddenly isolated and alone, they were easy pickings.

With every slash, Amelia took a step back. Every monster that died had another to replace it. Within a matter of minutes, they'd managed to balance out their disadvantage, to the point where both sides looked mostly even. How had things gone so badly in so little time? How had her people gone from winning handily, to an even fight? How did these creatures manage to gain so much ground?

The humans retreated further and further, pushed on their way by the encroaching invaders. Amelia looked for opportunities to fight back, but found none. She tried to blink around the field now that the lines of both sides had thinned, but doing so only bought her a kill she could have acquired elsewhere anyway. As such, her time traveling efforts had little effect. Try as she might, she was only one woman. It took more than individual acts of valor to win a battle.

The human lines broke against a piece of the wing, the same piece Amelia had been sitting on what felt like forever ago. They divided into a pair of separate groups around the debris, while the monsters chased them down. Amelia ended up on the right, which suited her just fine, as it put her injured side toward the wing piece. She tried another brash advance, and received a fist to the face for her efforts. A sheer miracle allowed her to avoid the ensuing sword slash.

To her left, she heard more than saw someone clamber up on the wing. There, she saw Patrick swinging his battleaxe with wild abandon. The elevated position allowed his long weapon to strike over the heads of his human cohorts, striking down the monsters from an unexpected angle. At the sight of him, Amelia's eyes widened in terror.

"No! Patrick, get down! That's not safe!" She screamed at the top of her lungs, yet the din of war swallowed up her voice. She tried to make her way over to him, but a monster blocked her path. Amelia cut at this imposer, but her attack lacked aim and as such was easily blocked. She blinked back in time to avoid its counter and then stabbed it like she had so many other foes.

With her vision cleared of obstructions, she again focused on Patrick. He hewed a monster in twain and raised his axe for another attack. Amelia began working her watch to zoom over to him. Fingers at the end of an injured and exhausted arm couldn't make the fine adjustments fast enough.

A javelin pierced Patrick's guts, spraying drops of red blood as it entered through one side of him and out the other.

"Patrick!" Amelia cried out for him.

The Irishman looked down at the implement embedded within him. He then slowly turned his green eyes to meet Amelia's blue. The fear on his face seared into her mind. He took a shallow breath, and tumbled off the left side wing.

Amelia screamed. She tried again to make her way over to him, but more enemies blocked her. She slashed at them with the ferocity of a wild animal, forgetting entirely about her time travel. This was not the place for tricks. What good did deception do, if it couldn't make a difference?

The monsters moved in. Amelia lost all sense of grace and intelligence as she fought. Her attack and defense relied solely on instinct, her need to stay alive guided her one good arm. She wasn't tired, nor did she feel much pain from her wounds. The only thing that mattered was survival, was to cling onto that sliver of hope for another sunrise.

But there would be no hope. The monsters advanced further, beating down anyone foolish enough to stand in their way. Amelia took a slash across her ribs, superficial and shallow, but no less excruciating. She swung left and right, attacks which made no contact, that only succeeded in pushing the enemies back. Another cut came in at her right leg, and she barely managed to parry it, but doing so left her open to a thrown rock. The projectile instantly drew blood as it clanged against her forehead. She stumbled back, rapidly blinking to clear the cobwebs. Three blurry figures closed in on her.

A great crash—the loudest sound Amelia had ever heard—cracked over the cacophony of battle. One of the surrounding, massive evergreen trees—branches, roots, and all—tumbled through the battlefield, crushing any monsters dragged beneath it and scattering many others. Several pairs of eyes, including Amelia's, turned in the direction this projectile had come from.

Several great octopus tentacles climbed and squirmed up over the wreckage of the airplane fuselage. Amelia's vision still hadn't quite returned, so she couldn't make out the greater details, but she assumed this to be Gura's doing. Where else would a giant octopus come from?

As this newcomer cleared the debris, Amelia swore she saw a figure at the center of the tentacles. She blinked rapidly, desperate to attain some understanding of the situation. Her vision clarified, and with it came astonishment, because there atop the wreckage she saw not Gawr Gura, but Ninomae Ina'nis. Amelia shook her head to clear the cobwebs, yet Ina remained.

Ina coiled up and then launched herself directly into the fray, spinning as she went. Like the blades of a helicopter—or, perhaps, a lawnmower—her tentacles collided with the enemy monsters as she reached the ground. The appendages also dug great furrows into the soil, kicking up dirt which she used to disguise her initial offense. Two tentacles each lashed out, each long enough to strike multiple foes with power so great, whatever natural carapace covered the monsters was pulverized, sending shards in every which direction.

Many of the creatures broke off to deal with the new threat. They paid for such arrogance. Propping herself up on two tentacles, Ina launched a six-pronged counter. She smashed one monster into the ground, while also smacking another like a baseball off into the forest somewhere. One made a swipe at her. Ina wrapped up its wrist, constricted her tentacle to sever the hand, threw the weapon she'd managed to steal in dong so at another monster, and crushed the now injured one between two other limbs. One monster was picked up the the ankle and tossed aside. One ended up smacked into another so that they both ended up crushed. Two came at her from the front. Ina picked them both up, smashed them against each other, and threw their corpses back into the crowd. She then launched herself again, spinning a much shorter distance to clear an area around her and scoring many kills in the meantime.

So many monsters turned their focus onto Ina, that the few remaining humans actually managed to find a reprieve. To Amelia's surprise they surged forward, knocking into the creatures that still fought against them. The blonde had expected them to run at the sight of Ina, but perhaps they assumed anything fighting the monsters was on their side. They were right, of course.

The machete in Amelia's hand felt like it weighed a hundred pounds, yet she managed to rejoin the fray even so. She carved an X into the chest of an enemy. Ina's tentacles could be clearly seen extending up above the battle, flicking and writhing about. She pounded the dirt with three loud hits, each one presumably taking down a creature. Amelia stabbed one for herself before two went flying overhead, trailing destroyed hard flesh in their wake.

Ina grabbed two monsters by their feet, one in each tentacle, and used them to begin sweeping the field. She rammed them into their brethren, impromptu percussive weapons to bash and batter at the foe. Three swings—right, then left, and then right again—cleared a great swath of space before her.

Three monsters thought her preoccupied enough to come up from behind, but Ina was wise to them. She hit each with a tentacle, slamming them down simultaneously with such force she popped off the ground. She dug two tentacles into the dirt and pulled herself back down hard enough to create a shallow crater, not unlike an explosive device might. Five monsters standing too close ended up airborne from the impact. Cascading tentacle strikes sent them all flying. Ina crushed a sixth into the ground for emphasis. In light of all that, the one that Amelia hacked down seemed paltry in comparison.

There were very few monsters left, now, easily less than a dozen. Those remaining turned tail and ran, abandoning their weapons in favor of a full-speed sprint for the trees. Amelia watched them go, breathing heavy, sore from head to toe. She, too, dropped her weapon, as weak fingers couldn't manage to hold it any longer. Her posture slumped on feet that could barely keep her upright. But she still stood, somehow triumphant in the face of impossibility.

"Don't chase them!" Called one of the passengers, a man. "Let them go. We won... I think."

Ina lowered herself to the ground, standing on her own two feet for the first time. The moment she did, she began jogging toward Amelia. Her tentacles went away, retracting back into her back, though it should have been impossible for even one, thick as they were, to fit inside her slight frame. That was the magic of the Ancient Ones, Amelia guessed.

"Amelia!" Ina shouted as she approached. "Ame, what happened? Oh my God, you're hurt! We need to get you out of here, or find a doctor, or—"

The moment Ina came within reach, Amelia used her one good arm to pull her into a hug tight as she could manage. Ina didn't hesitate to return the embrace. Amelia buried her face into the chest of her slightly taller friend, letting the first tears she'd cried since everything happened finally fall down her cheeks. She was probably smearing blood all over Ina's otherworldly clothes, but she didn't care. Her friend was here. Ina had saved her.

"I'm so happy to see you," Amelia barely managed to choke out.

"I'm glad you're safe," Ina said.

The two stayed like that for an indeterminate amount of time, not because it lasted long, but because neither was really counting. Amelia let all of the emotions she'd been holding in wash over her as she stood there sobbing into her friend. She'd had to be strong for the passengers, to give them hope in this disaster, but now that time was over. She could finally release the pent up fear, and anger, and uncertainty she'd been feeling.

Ina, for her part, stood strong as a statue, gently rubbing the back of Amelia's head while staying otherwise silent. She was happy Amelia had her eyes closed and head down. Otherwise, she'd see the tears falling from Ina's own eyes, which may have made her breakdown even worse. That was the last thing Amelia needed.

It was Amelia that eventually broke the hug when her waterworks dried up. She met Ina's eyes to find them puffy and wet, which almost started another round for herself, but she managed to swallow these emotions in favor of conversation.

"What are you even doing here?" She asked of her friend.

"Well, I hadn't heard from you for a whole day," Ina began, "so I asked the Ancient Ones what happened to you and they said you were in danger. I bartered with them for transportation to you. I'm just glad I got here in time."

"Me, too," agreed Amelia. "Thank you so much for coming." The two hugged again, but Amelia pulled back entirely a second later. "Wait, _bartered_? Did you give them something?"

"It doesn't matter right now," Ina shook her head. "All I care about is that you're safe."

"Like hell it doesn't matter! Ina, what did you give them?" Amelia insisted.

"I'll tell you once we have you all bandaged up, okay? Can't have you bleeding to death," Ina said with a smile. It was so disarming, so nonchalant and joyous, that Amelia actually didn't know how to respond.

"Alright," she muttered.

"Alright," Ina said, and began walking toward the fuselage. "Once we have you patched up, we need to get out of here."

"No, we should stay," Amelia argued. Ina turned a raised eyebrow back to her. "I talked to Gura. She's on her way to get us. Should be here any minute, now."

"You did? I've been messaging Gura since this all happened. She didn't mention anything," said Ina.

"Yeah, well, that's probably because I told her to get some sleep first. She might not have woken up, yet. Or, she just forgot. You know how she can be."

"Yeah," Ina agreed with a chuckle. "Alright, we'll stay. It'll be good to see Gura."

Amelia silently agreed. As the two of them picked their way through the scattered corpses, Amelia did her best to ignore the pain ebbing throughout her entire body, to look away from the blood trailing from her wounds. She would have liked to keep her gaze up so as to avoid staring at any of the dead bodies, but doing so risked tripping on them, so she grit her teeth and made her path carefully through the field.

She locked eyes with the cold stare of Patrick, frozen in his final moments of fear and suffering as he lay in a heap on his side. Such a price had been paid, that day, so much blood spilled, and Amelia had no idea why. They may have beaten back the monsters, but when so many lives were traded in doing so, could it really be called a victory? Was it worth it?

She closed her eyes and took a deep breath, recentering her thoughts. Keep moving forward. That's all she could do. Save those she could, and mourn for those she couldn't. In that way, Ina was right. She'd be no used to anyone if she bled out. She had to be travel ready. Gura would arrive soon.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> AUTHOR'S NOTES: I'm knocking on an entire forest's worth of wood when I say things at my job seem to have normalized. Part of my current progress is because I actually have time to write again, and I'm really enjoying it. I don't know how long I'll be able to keep this pace up, but I'll put out updates as soon as I can.
> 
> This was the first proper battle scene I'd written for quite a while. It was a lot of fun. Big battles tend to be a bit shorter on the page than smaller-scale fights because they have to be narrated in a slightly obfuscated nature. The more moving parts a fight has, the fewer details each individual part can realistically receive without taking up too much time. That's why the parts with just Amelia are longer than when the passengers joined in. I hope that isn't disappointing.
> 
> Is this the least chill we've ever seen Ina? I think it probably is, but Hollow Knight just might show us Ninomae Rage'anis before she's through with it. What did you think about finally seeing her for the first time?


	7. Episode 7: Phase 1

Calliope passed her scythe through a monster. It split in half perfectly down the middle, spraying that blue blood of theirs as the two pieces fell apart. A creature came at her left, and for its efforts received another vertical slice. While this one still died, Calliope ducked to one knee beneath a slash from her right. She brought her scythe around to stab up into this third brute. With a yank, she simultaneously stood up and pulled her weapon upward through the enemy, cutting his chest so that his upper half splayed apart like a butterflied piece of meat.

Kiara soared by several feet away, propelled by jets of flame shot from closed fists at her sides. Trailing fire like napalm, she dropped hot death on a trio of unsuspecting monsters below. The unnatural fire struck to them and burned away whatever it touched while leaving the rest unscathed. This sort of sticky fire-glue seemed to be a Kiara original, useful for when she didn't wan to burn anything other than her intended target, which Calliope was most grateful for.

The phoenix spun as she landed, lashing out as she did with whips aflame to clear an area. Coming out of her spin she drew her weapons, sword in her dominant left and, shield in her right. While the shield went largely untouched, Kiara channeled fire into the sword. The weapon was made of three overlapping layers, a black part on the lower outside, a red and orange bit that covered the majority, and a little bit of ethereal blue blade sticking out of the top. The moment Kiara's fire engulfed the weapon, the black parts folded down to form a crossguard. Orange flames turned to blue as they engulfed the rest of the weapon, allowing it to grow to double its initial length. Now a proper longsword, as opposed to the shortsword it was when unactivated, Kiara gave it a good swish through the air so it trailed illumination behind not unlike how a lightsaber did.

Two monsters came at her. Kiara blocked the one on her right with the shield, and the other with the sword. She stomped on the ground to create a brief burst of radiating flame, just enough to trip up the monsters. In one swipe, she sliced all the way through the left creature, and halfway into the right. One came at her front, and she gave it stab at the full extension of her arm.

A creature came at her left. Kiara crossed her shield over to block it, and then slashed over top of the defense to hew off a chunk of this enemy. She then blocked a high attack from the right with the shield and stabbed underneath it. One of the brutes tried to come up behind her. Kiara threw out a back kick with some fire for emphasis which blasted a hole through this would-be attacker. She spun around and turned this back kick into an axekick into the pavement. A flaming line shot out from where her foot made contact, engulfing three monsters dumb enough to stand close together.

While they burned, Calliope rushed in to end their suffering with a quick slash for each. She twisted one-eighty around to block an overhead from an encroaching foe. While she blocked, Kiara shot this monster down with blue flame from the tip of her sword.

Another trio approached Calliope, one on either side with a third in front a step behind. Calli cut through the left monster, and then the right. The one tailing them stepped up. The reaper gave it an upkick between the legs which popped it a few feet skyward. Kiara shot it out of the air. As it went flying backwards, Calliope used the distraction it created to rush forward and cut down four additional combatants.

A fifth monster tried to counter with a downward slice. Calli blocked overhead, and then gave a heave with her weapon to toss the creature stumbling aside. Kiara soared through the air to simultaneously impale and tackle it. She landed in a roll, slicing through a trio with one big swipe as she came out of it.

An enemy came at her right. She put up her shield to block its attack. A shove lined it up with another. In a burst of ash, Calliope turned her scythe into a long javelin, which she summarily hucked at these aligned creatures. The javelin passed clean through the first and embedded in the second.

She rushed forward, literally leaping into action. At the height of her jump, her scythe turned to ash from where it stuck in the monster, only to reappear in her hands in its proper form. She gave the weapon a twirl, cutting down two monsters as she came back down. She then took out the legs of another. As it fell, Kiara cut up through it.

Calliope cut down an attacker from up the street, and Kiara killed one in the opposite direction. They then switched sides, pivoting around each other for another pair of kills. The girls became a flurry of motion, hacking and slashing their way in different directions, carving a path through the horde. No matter how many monsters tried their luck, no enemy could hope to withstand the perfect onslaught of these two mythical beings.

The reaper blocked an attack at her right, which left the aggressive monster open for a kick to the chest. It bent over, clutching the new bruise with one hand as it attempted to stumble back. Calli let it walk straight into a slash from her scythe. She continued this motion into a twirl which took down two other brutes who thought to pincer her. Calliope took a glance over her shoulder to see Kiara parry an enemy cut by manipulating it from her right to left, and then crossing over the shield to stab at the monster's face.

And then it fell silent. It always took Calliope a few seconds to realize a fight was over once it actually ended. She became to enraptured by the violence, so caught up in the gentle ebb and flow of battle, that the extraneous details of it—such as how many foes remained—fell away from her sight. She stood there, scythe at the ready, ever-so-slight effort on her breath, waiting for the next blow. It never fell. With a deep breath in, she righted herself to a normal, casual standing posture and banished her weapon in a rain of ash.

"You okay, Kusotori?" She asked of her companion. Kiara was just putting her sword away. Now extinguished, it looked just like it had before.

"I'm fine. You?" Kiara said.

"Yep, I'm cool. No problems here." Calliope tried to make herself sound nonchalant, though wondered if she may have been too heavy-handed. Kiara gave her a little smile, still.

"We should get out of here soon," said the phoenix. "I don't want a repeat of last time."

"That wasn't so bad," countered Calliope. "There weren't _that_ many reinforcements, and it was kinda fun."

Kiara just rolled her big purple eyes and began the task of collecting all of the weapons. Calli watched her for a second before doing the same. The phoenix had been doing much better the past day, as opposed to the day before. Having a goal definitely helped to center her mind, and take her focus off of everything that was going on. Calliope often made an effort to keep the atmosphere light and fun, just to enhance the heightened morale of her friend.

It had only been about a day and a half since the invasion started, yet the two of them had already overturned five or six of these enemy positions. Each time, the girls would gather up the weapons and bring them to a nearby shelter or similar installation, where they would inevitably find authority figures to leave them with.

The two of them walked a little way up the street to where they had stashed a pair of golf club bags in an alleyway. These had been their first acquisition after deciding on the current course of action, and had been easy enough to pillage from an abandoned sporting goods store. The bags themselves were Kiara's idea. The invaders used weapons of many varying sizes, so they needed something that could accommodate both short blades and great axes.

Bags in hand, they went about stuffing the weapons inside. Calliope liked to start with all of the longer implements first. Pound for pound, they would be more useful in a fight than something shorter in the hands of lesser experience combatants. And, since they took up more space, it was easier to stuff them in first and then filter the shorter arms around them.

First came a longsword, which Calli slipped back into its scabbard—still on the hip of its previous owner—before stashing it away. Next, she managed to find a greataxe and a spear in close proximity. Regardless of form, all of the enemy weapons seemed to take on an identical philosophy. They were simple things, not crude by any means, but forged for function rather than aesthetics. Each sharp weapon had a black handle and a faintly glowing red blade, while blunt weapons like the club Calliope just grabbed tended to be all one color. They were each fine works forged by master craftsmen, plain and sleek lines, purely effective weapons of war without any unnecessary frills.

"Careful, Kusotori. Don't cut yourself," warned Calliope.

"Don't worry, I am," Kiara said as she slipped a shortsword into her bag. "It's really precarious reaching into a bag full of sharp blades, though."

"That's what I'm saying," agreed Calli. "I don't know what these things are made of, but they seem to cut through pretty much anything."

Kiara paused to put a few more things away. "Do you think they could cut you? You're pretty tough."

"I don't know, and I'm pretty sure I don't want to find out," said Calli.

"Only pretty sure?"

"Well, I mean, for science maybe," Calliope said with a shrug.

"You don't know what that phrase means, do you?" Kiara asked.

"What phrase?"

" _For science._ "

"No."

"That's what I thought," Kiara said, and then sighed, "I'll explain later."

"Alright," Calliope agreed.

The conversation dried up as they continued about their task. Probably for the better, really. What Kiara had said earlier was right. They didn't want to risk fighting any reinforcements. These monsters may have been rather easy opponents most of the time, but that didn't make dealing with them less dangerous. It meant more salvage, sure, but an ambush they had no control over was not exactly ideal. The less time they spent in one place, the better.

So, Calliope picked up the pace a little. As the more robust of the two, she didn't have to worry about injuring herself quite to the same extent. She went to pick up a greatsword, but found it much too heavy. She had to squat down into a proper position and really lift to pick it up. She took a deep breath while her heartbeat increased. This weapon was lighter than her scythe, surely, so why was it so hard to handle? Was she really that tired, now that the adrenaline of the fight had worn off? Sure, she'd only slept literally a couple hours, but that was normal for her. Why was she having such a trying time?

She shook her head, ignoring how her eyes stung when she closed them. This was not the time for exhaustion. She couldn't give in. No excuse for sucking. She put the greatsword in her bag and then went for a much more reasonable handaxe. A shaky hand joined it with the others. It was a wonder she didn't cut herself. Soldier on. Push through. Once they got moving, it would be easier. She just had to keep going.

Working together, the two of them made quick work of what remained of these forcibly discarded weapons. Strange, how the weapons themselves always felt like far fewer than the creatures that had wielded them. Calli always expected to find a mountain of swords and spears, and was always surprised to find they all fit in just two bags. Several repetitions of this, and it still shocked her. Then again, she wasn't exactly taking the time to count during the heat of battle.

Calliope managed to finish a few seconds before Kiara. After the phoenix had manged to collect the final implement from the battlefield, they set off through the streets. Tokyo looked much worse from a distance than it did up close. From Kiara's apartment one could easily observe smoke, fires, debris, and even hear a few shouts every now and then. On the ground, buffeted by streets and buildings, the city appeared to be in much better shape. Skyscrapers hid the plumes, while daylight drowned the flames. If not for the eerily abandoned sidewalks, the town looked pretty normal.

This is, save for one thing. The corpses. With no one around to give them proper burials, and the enemy clearly not caring to, the alleyways and avenues were littered with dead bodies. The invaders had moved them off into piles placed here and there, but Calliope suspected this was just to clear the streets for their own use. After all, they couldn't conquer a city if their troops had difficulty moving around.

It hadn't been quite long enough for the bodies to start smelling, but Calliope still held her breath whenever she walked past a gathering. That they'd not decomposed much yet was actually a curse, rather than a blessing. These bodies still looked like people. Most of them were frozen in their last expressions of sheer terror, horribly maimed or disfigured in some way by blows from enemy aggression. If they were mostly unrecognizable, that would be one thing, but these looked like regular people, lives cut short by unnatural means. Calliope couldn't help but wonder who they were, what they may have been if none of this had ever happened. And yet, try as she might, the piles only grew taller with every passing moment. If only she could be everywhere at once. Keep moving forward. Focus on her current task. Bring these weapons back and give the people a fighting chance. That was all she could do.

Kiara took the lead as the two walked back to the little shelter they'd been staying in, not because she wanted to, but because Calliope allowed her to do so. From behind, Calli could keep an eye on her friend, make sure nothing happened to her, and intervene if it did. She'd done this with her friends since before the current crisis, a nervous habit she picked up at some point. It came in useful, now.

Calli kept her eyes fixed between the shoulder blades of her friend, because to look anywhere else forced her to gaze upon the city. Even if the destruction really wasn't that bad, there was still damage to be seen. The last thing she wanted or needed was a reminder of how dire a situation they both were in. She didn't need to see the scorch marks, the rubble, the deceased. She knew they were there. That was bad enough.

In a way, staring solely at Kiara put the reaper on the mentality she'd set herself for. If she focused on her goals, then she at least had a path through the storm. Kiara _was_ one of her goals. Out of everyone else in all of Japan—and possibly even the world—Calliope wanted to keep her friends safe. Kiara, most of all. To see her provided a constant reminder of that.

Taking the back line provided another, secondary benefit. Maybe it came from her ability to fly, but Kiara had a great sense of direction. Calliope, on the other hand, did not. It was a very good thing her reaper senses led her to the location of her next soul to take. Otherwise, she'd never find anyone. It may be ridiculous to think that after literally all of eternity she hadn't learned to read a map or memorize her way around, but that was the truth. If not for Kiara, she'd have quite the time making it back to their current shelter.

Along the way, they passed what looked like the site of a small skirmish. One monster and one human lay dead in pools of their respective blood. Little ponds of dark blue and red met at a border to form a sickly brownish-purple color. The human had still clutched in his hands a dagger, whether one given to him by the authorities or pilfered in some other way Calliope couldn't be sure. The monster had a handaxe. Calliope diverted to place both of these in her pack. She gave a quick glance for the fallen man, long enough to wish his soul to find peace, before returning to Kiara. The phoenix gave her an uncertain look for a second, which Calli met with a shake of her head. A deep breath, and they both continued on.

The trip back to the shelter they had been staying at was short, all things considered. In about forty-five minutes of walking they arrived. That may seem like quite a while, but given how slow human walking speed was, and how much more in shape the two of them were compared to a normal person, such a trip required little effort at all.

They walked down a narrow alleyway, completely nondescript, covered in miscellaneous trash, walls broken by side doors to various buildings, a few garbage cans and a dumpster for obstacles. Calliope pushed the dumpster alone where it sat against the west wall. There, she found a little hatch hiding beneath it. Kiara bent down to open the hatch. Dim light spilled out combined with the feel and smell of sterile air conditioning. The girls each slung a pack over a shoulder and began to descend down the hatch via a latter attached to the wall. As the second one in, Calliope reached up and out of the hatch to move the dumpster back over it with one hand, which also closed it back at the same time. An advantage to having the strength of a reaper. She wasn't sure how normal people were supposed to do that without one person staying outside.

The ladder let out immediately into a tiny little entrance, a narrow room added more for separation sake than anything else. Calliope took the few steps necessary to enter the shelter proper, and paused at the sight of it. Every time she saw this room, it took her aback. White sheeted bunk beds three columns deep on each side and several rows back lined the walls with only narrow passages to walk between them. Almost every bed was occupied.

The people here ran the gamut of society. There were convenience store workers still clad in their various uniforms. There were families with children, some whole and some broken. Men in suits slept next to school teachers who butted up against drug addicts, and bus drivers, and construction workers. They were, all of them, brought low to equal footing by the hammer of catastrophe. There were no classes in here, only people desperate to survive one more day. Tokyo had places like this scattered all over the city, hidden little rooms established in case of emergency.

As Calliope jogged a few steps to catch up with Kiara, she realized what alarmed her most about this place was its silence. There were easily seventy people crammed in there, counting the officers assigned to watch over them. So, it should've been quite noisy, right? Instead, one could almost hear a pin drop. Aside from the occasional bouts of hushed conversation, coughing and sneezing, the occasional squeak of a bed frame or rustling of luggage, it was dead quiet. These people had nothing to talk about, no happiness to share. All they had was fear and loathing. Calliope hated it. She hated what the invaders had done to the people in just a single sunset.

Some of the people looked up as Calliope and Kiara passed. The reaper tried her best to give them reassuring nods, and to heft the pack on her back a few times in case her success somehow made them feel better, _safer_. Most, though, kept to themselves, lost in their own little destitute worlds. Calli was the one and only hope for the majority of them. That they didn't even acknowledge her felt like a defeat, as if these folks had already given up. That, more than anything, filled her own heart with despair.

A young man stood at the very back of the room. He couldn't be at the front, of course. That would be too easy. His white collared shirt, blue vest, and ridiculous captain's hat denoted him as a member of the police, one of the officers taking care of the joint. He was apparently in charge, though his full cheeks and smooth skin made him look a bit too young to have command of anything. Likely, his position was one of circumstance rather than earned authority. There were other officers present, but he was perhaps the only one who stepped up. Calliope didn't know, and she honestly couldn't care.

"You're back," he said, a smile on his face, once they reached him.

"We are, Officer Kimura," Kiara said. "We brought more weapons."

"That's great. I'll make sure they get distributed just like the last batches," said the officer as Kiara and Calliope dropped their packs.

"Thank you," Calliope said.

"No, thank _you_ ," countered Officer Kimura. "You are, slowly but surely, giving us a fighting chance."

"Not much of one," Calliope shrugged. "There's only so much the two of us can do."

"Maybe, but your efforts have inspired others. While you were gone, I heard three different rumors of other citizens and officers, and even the military, doing the same thing you are."

"They're collecting weapons?" Kiara asked.

"That's how I understand it," Officer Kimura said with a nod. "I'm cut off from central intel, so it's all just rumors, but from what I hear there have been little skirmishes all over the city."

"That's amazing!" Kiara exclaimed. "Calli, we're making a difference!"

"I guess so, huh?" Calliope said.

Kiara and Officer Kimura continued talking for a little bit. Calliope mostly tuned them out. For herself, she just couldn't get as excited about this news as either of them. So a few people decided to take up arms, so what? There was an unknown horde of enemies literally right below their feet. What could a ragtag bunch of untrained citizens do? They were still just as badly off as before, only now the people willingly offered themselves up to the meat grinder. If Calliope wanted to truly make a difference, then she would have to find a better way, and she'd have to work even harder in the meantime.

So that was why, the moment Officer Kimura had ownership of the new weapons, Calliope went right back out to go get more. Kiara joined her, more than eager to find yet another fight, invigorated by seeing the results of her actions. That wasn't enough for Calliope. They needed more, to _do_ more. She wouldn't stop until every able person in Tokyo had a weapon in their hands. Then, and only then, did they stand a real fighting chance. It was the only plan she had. It was what she could do for now.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> AUTHOR'S NOTES: So, while Kiara's sword looks undoubtedly super cool, it's basically unwieldable as an effective weapon. I had to do something with it in order to make it something she could feasibly fight with, so I gave it a transformation. I hope you all don't mind.
> 
> Since group fights with my protagonists are (probably) going to become more common from here on out, I'll be taking a page from the playbook of my biggest inspiration, R. A. Salvatore. Whenever he choreographs a fight featuring more than one protagonist, he zooms out to an omniscient third-person point of view, and then goes back to a limited POV after the action is done. This is really the only good way to make fights with more than just one good guy. I've done it before myself, but not so extensively. Hopefully it wasn't too hard to follow in this chapter's fight, and won't be going forward.
> 
> This chapter proved much more difficult than I expected. But, that was a good thing in the end. I completely retooled Takamori's next few chapters into something far more compelling. This used to be a filler chapter, which I was not happy with, but it turned into another important part of the story.


End file.
